


Keep Hope Close at Hand

by wordsbymeganmichael



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - In Storybrooke | Cursed, Canon Rewrite, F/M, Verbal Abuse, tw: verbal abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2019-10-19 06:37:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 61,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17596316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordsbymeganmichael/pseuds/wordsbymeganmichael
Summary: When a curse is going to send the inhabitants of Enchanted Forest, Captain Killian Jones, husband to the Princess, must take their daughter through the wardrobe to save them from the curse and give her the ability to break the curse when the time comes.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> The other day, I got this terrible idea of a cursed universe where Killian is Henry's father but neither of them knows it, and this is what happened. It's going to be very slow-going because grad school, but it's HAPPENING. I'm hoping to get a chapter out every few weeks or so. I completely scrap every bit of canon once the curse is cast (and even before that). Good luck.

“There is  _ nothing _ okay about this plan, Emma!” Killian yells, the heels of his boots practically echoing on the stone floors as he pushes his fingers through his hair, a movement that he's done so many times during the course of this conversation that parts of it are standing straight up. 

“It's the only way, Killian,” she says, not for the first time, and hangs her head, refusing to turn around and look at her husband. 

“It can't be the only way, and I won't — I  _ won't  _ do it, Emma. I'm not leaving you here.” 

“There's a curse coming. A curse that's going to break us all up, take away all our memories. The wardrobe will only take two people, and I'm the princess of this realm. I can't leave my people behind.”

“But you can leave your daughter behind? Leave me behind?” She expects him to be angry, upset, incredibly pissed off — all of the things he's been throughout their whole conversation. But what she doesn't expect to hear is the sadness in his voice as it cracks while he asks this question. 

Finally, she turns to him, but his back is to her, staring out the window over the ocean. By the time she makes it across the room to him, she can see his shoulders shaking as he tries to hold himself together, as he tries to hold in his sobs. 

This is still something that amazes her whenever she sees it: Killian Jones, the former Captain Hook, the most villainous pirate in all the realms, who has since shed his moniker, his treachery, and his position to be with her, to  _ marry  _ her — showing emotion. When she met him, his only care in the world was his revenge against the Dark One, and he was willing to do whatever was necessary to finally get it. He was a hard man, an unbreakable shell of an exterior, but it did not take Emma long to get through to him and see him for what he really was: a broken man. 

It had taken her a year to make him believe that she saw his true self and not the revenge-driven mask he'd worn for far too long. He's always been much more than a pirate, but it had been a few hundred years since anyone saw him that way. But as soon as he realized that she wasn't fooled by him, that she saw him for who he really was, he had already been in love with her for a few months. She was incredibly attractive, yes, absolutely the type of woman that he would have brought home to his ship for the night, but to be in  _ love  _ with her? That's something he hadn't thought was possible. 

It took another year after that for her to realize her feelings matched his, that he was someone she was  _ allowed  _ to have feelings for, though it took her father a while to see it the same way. (Though Killian offering to give up his Captain Hook moniker and life of piracy in exchange for a position as naval advisor definitely helped. He  _ was  _ in the Navy once upon a time, of course.) 

But two weeks after King David had given Killian permission to wed, they exchanged their vows in front of the whole kingdom as Captain Killian Jones and Princess Emma of Misthaven.

“Killian,” she says gently, setting her hand on his shoulder and he turns to her, startled that she is suddenly so close to him. "You know that's not true, right?"

"Well then, what is it, Emma?" The pain in his voice matches that in his eyes, and for a moment, Emma is not even sure that she can produce an answer strong enough to pull him out of his sadness. Thankfully, as her tongue seems to return to its normal size, he continues. "What is it about me and our daughter that makes it so easy to let us go while you stay behind to be cursed by the Evil Queen?"

For the briefest of moments, she wants to tell him the whole truth, the only secret she has ever felt the need to keep from her husband after five years of marriage. But she knows that it would just hurt him more, break his heart the rest of the way open knowing they have to separate, and she bites her tongue before all the words fly out. But when she doesn't produce an answer he turns away from her, back to the window, and all she can do is wrap her arms around him, pressing her cheek against his back.

"You need to keep her safe, Killian. Once the curse is cast, she will be all you have. And you will be her whole world. She's too young to remember me, and the curse will wipe all our memories, so I won't remember either of you."

With her ear pressed to his back, she hears him take a deep, shaking breath, running his fingers through his hair once more before turning in her arms, wrapping his own around her waist.

"Why do you have to be right all the bloody time?" he asks, his voice still recovering from his sobs, but he tries his hardest to smile at her.

And she tries to smile back. " Just comes with being the princess, I guess."

They stand in silence for a few moments, simply breathing in the presence of the other. But Killian's need to have his questions answered quickly wins importance over this moment.

"How long do we have?"

"Blue estimates a few weeks, at most. Geppetto is building the wardrobe as quickly as he can, it should be finished in the next few days."

"And when will the fairies come back from their journey?"

"As long as she was right about how long it would take, they should be back tonight." 

Killian flicks his tongue out of his mouth to wet his bottom lip, nodding slowly, and if Emma hadn't learned that this particular combination signified her husband lost in his thoughts, she would have leaned forward to capture his lips with her own.

But after a moment, his eyes find hers again, suddenly much brighter than they were just moments before. "Do you think your mother would be able to watch our little lass tonight? So we can spend one last evening on the Jolly, one last evening to ourselves before we get have to separate?"

Emma smiles up at him, always amazed at his ability to find a silver lining in every situation. "I think I could probably talk her into that."

 

The next afternoon, everyone is gathered in the council chambers, Killian holding their swaddled daughter in his arms, everyone waiting for Blue to begin, having called the meeting immediately upon her return.

"First thing first, Geppetto will be delivering the wardrobe tomorrow with some of his most trusted men. As he originally intended, it will hold enough magic to transport two people to another realm, away from the curse. Have you decided who is going to join the child?"

Killian and Emma share a glance, a soft, sad smile on her lips, and she watches him as he turns back to the fairy hovering above the center of the table. "Aye, I'll be taking her through the portal."

Emma looks across the table and meets her mother's eyes. She seems surprised at this answer, even though Emma gave her the very same excuses she gave Killian: her dedication to the kingdom, her need to stay with her people. But, also like Killian, she has kept her secret from her mother, the real reason she is too afraid to go through the portal herself and be with her daughter, even knowing that Killian would do anything to find her again. 

“Good,” the fairy says as if it were just another meaningless decision like the ones that are usually made at this council table and not the hardest thing Emma has ever had to do. “Do not leave this room before I can speak with you, Captain Jones,” she adds. Killian nods, and Emma watches as the muscles of his jaw harden as he grinds his back teeth together. “Next, it seems the Evil Queen is a few days closer to casting this curse as we originally intended.”

“How many days?” Emma asks quickly, voicing the question on everyone’s mind. 

“Quite a few, actually. We can probably expect the curse to be cast by the end of the week.”

“The end of the week?” Snow asks, amazed by just how quickly everything is falling apart, and a few others around the table voice similar concerns, but Emma just keeps her eyes fixed on her husband, who turns to face her, his expression awash with sadness. 

“What do you mean the end of the week?!” Grumpy, the loudest of all the dwarves, jumps out of his seat, slamming his fist against the table. “You said we had a few weeks left, and now you’re giving us no more than a few days!”

The expression on the fairy’s face stays unfaltering. “I apologize, I really do,” she says as loudly as she can, trying to regain control of the council room, which only takes a moment. “We were not expecting the Evil Queen to act this quickly, but now that we know she has, we can take all necessary precautions and be as prepared as we can when the curse is finally cast.”

The room erupts into chaos once more, everyone in the room talking at once — except Emma and Killian, who sit silently next to each other, Emma’s hand on Killian’s leg as they both stare down into the bright blue eyes of their daughter. 

Even if her life depended on it, Emma is not sure that she could recall any of what happened at the council meeting after that, besides the fact that every few minutes, it erupted into a cacophony of screaming voices outraged at the news Blue was sharing with them. But it is not until the members of the council begin to file out of the room that Emma even realizes that she was no longer paying attention, focused intently on trying to memorize every feature of her daughter’s face, of her husband’s. 

Because, in a few days, no one could be sure when she would see them again.

If she would ever see them again. 

“Captain Jones, I have a few things I would like to tell you in private if you don’t mind?” Blue asks, her wings carrying her slowly towards them across the table. 

“Of course,” Killian says softly, not sure that he has enough in him to say much more, and holds the swaddled baby out to his wife with as much of a smile as he can muster, though it barely lasts a moment before it fades. Once Emma has closed the doors of the council room behind her, he turns his attention back up to the fairy, who is now hovering just a few feet from his face. 

“Your journey is not going to be easy,” she says, and Killian barks out a laugh. 

“Aye, really? Leaving my love behind to get cursed, knowing that our little girl is going to be raised without a mother? History sure has a damned ironic way of repeating itself, doesn’t it?”

“This child will have  _ you _ , Captain. And you will have her. But one day in the future, she will be the key to breaking the curse, to finding your family and being together again. Do you understand?”

Killian swallows as a sudden chill inches its way down his spine. This is new information for him, knowing that it is on him to raise the little girl who will piece his life back together. “How will I know when it is time?”

“That is a question I do not have the answer to. All I can say is that when it is time, she will let you know. Keep hope close at hand, Captain. The day will come.” 

“Excellent. Nothing like incredibly cryptic messages from a bloody fairy.”

“I am sorry I cannot be more straightforward with things of this nature. But find solace in the fact that she will break the curse when the time is right.”

 

Much to everyone’s dismay, only five days pass before dark purple smoke is seen on the horizon, moving quickly towards Misthaven. 

The time has come. 

Killian collects the few things they have decided to bring with them packed in a satchel slung over his shoulder. But before he turns to the bassinet where their daughter is sleeping, completely unaware of the chaos that her life is about to become, he turns to his wife, standing unmoving in the middle of the room, paralyzed by shock. 

Quickly, he fills the space between them, resting his palm against her cheek just in time to catch her first tear with his thumb. “I will do everything I can to find you, darling,” he whispers, trying to will her eyes to raise from the floor and meet his, needing to take one last look into the entire world hidden behind them before he can depart. After a moment, she does just that, her chin quivering against his hand as she is unable to contain the tears that have welled in her eyes. 

She opens her mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. Instead, she lunges forward and hugs him as tightly as she can, burying her face in the crook of his neck, trying to breathe as much of him in as she can. He does the same with her, deep breaths through his nose trying to memorize the smell of her, the feel of her hair against his cheek, as much of her as he can, just as he has been trying to do since the curse was first announced to them. 

“I knew you were going to have to leave, have to take her with you, but I didn’t — I was trying to avoid believing that I was actually going to have to say goodbye.”

“Aye, love, I know how you feel. I cannot begin to express just how damned much I will miss every single thing about you, you know that?” 

“I love you,” she whispers, her lips wet with tears but finding his anyway. 

He couldn’t care less, just focused on feeling her against him, her lips against his for the last time in who knows how long. “I love you. Not a day will go by when I don’t think of you.”

She laughs, though it quickly turns to sobs. “Good.”

He pulls her tight against him once more, knowing that they are running out of time, but he never wants to let her go. 

“Emma, darling,” he mumbles finally, no part of him wanting her to move a muscle.

But reality quickly sinks in when the door to their room crashes open, David’s face red and the king breathless. 

“What are you still doing here?” he yells, and Killian pulls himself away from her, the single hardest thing he has ever had to do, letting her turn instead to her father. “Take her and go! You’re running out of time!” 

Killian nods at the king, a man that he has grown closer to than he ever would have thought possible, then reaches down and pulls his daughter out of her bassinet, turning back to Emma and David for one final look before he pulls the door to the wardrobe open and steps through it, closing it behind him. For a moment, it’s just dark, the smell of freshly-felled wood thick in his nose, but then the world begins to spin around him and all he can do is hold his daughter against his chest as tightly as he can. 

“Don’t worry, darling, I have you,” he whispers, his eyes squeezed shut, and then his feet are on hard ground again. When he opens his eyes, all he can see is trees. 

It worked. 

Back in Misthaven, as the purple smoke begins to weave its way through the castle, Emma clings to her father, finally voicing the secret that she so desperately wished she didn’t have to keep from her husband: “I’m pregnant. I couldn’t tell Killian, he would have refused to leave, would have refused to let me stay here, but I couldn’t — I was too afraid, and now this baby will never know his father.” 

Her emotions are finally too much for her, and even though David is trying his best to hold her up, she collapses to the floor, her sobs echoing off the cold stone of the castle as the curse reaches the deepest depths of the realm. 


	2. Chapter One

**_Twelve years later_ **

Killian sits at the counter in their apartment, his hand wrapped around the mug of tea sitting in front of him and his brace still on the table beside his bed. His flannel shirt is only half-buttoned, hanging loosely off his torso, revealing both his dark chest hair ( _yes_ , okay, maybe it was starting to grey a little, but apparently time is actually passing for him here), and the two rings hanging off the chain around his neck. His eyes are fixed on a knot in the wooden floor of the kitchen, thinking only of the brightest green eyes he has ever seen, memories of her that he only allows himself to pull up from where he has been pushing them down to in the quietest moments of the morning and sometimes as he drifts off to sleep.

But they are not eyes that have _haunted_ his dreams, not for close to eleven years. Of course he still dreamt about her, but his dreams were always full of her laughter, reliving some of his best memories with her.

Until last night. Well, that morning, really, because when he startled awake and shot up in his bed, the morning sun had already started peeking through the curtains. Last night, instead of laughter, his dreams had been filled with her cries, her tears, her pleas for help. And that terrifies him more than anything he has experienced since he left the Enchanted Forest.

Without even realizing he is doing it, he finds himself releasing the mug from his grasp, his fingers finding the chain and moving along it until they find the rings.

When he hears Hope stirring awake in her room, his mind flies back to the present, back to the Boston apartment and the life he has built for himself and his daughter in the twelve years since they found themselves in the middle of the forest just inside the state of Maine. Looking down at his hand, he discovers that it has wrapped itself around the diamond ring that was once at home on the hand of his wife, sparkling in the sun the same way her golden curls used to, especially when they would spend days out on the water and — _no_.

No, he can't let his mind go there, especially knowing that his little girl would be emerging from her bedroom in just a few moments. With a shake of his head, he drops the chain back to his chest before pushing off his barstool to start making her breakfast.

He has only poured her glass of orange juice by the time she opens her bedroom door, still in her pajamas. Not for the first time, he asks himself when he allowed her to grow up so quickly — and, also not for the first time, this thought is followed by the realization that he, too, has _grown up_ beside her, aging for the first time in hundreds of years, since the beginning of the time he spent in Neverland. His back aches, he needs reading glasses, but, perhaps worst of all, is the single stripe of grey hair that presented itself right at the forefront of his head, impossible to hide in the stark black that surrounds it.

_Stupid bloody curse._

"Good morning, daddy," she says, her voice still thick with sleep as she makes her way across the apartment to join him in the kitchen.

"Hello, my cygnet," he replies, his nickname for her since the first time she had named constellations on her own, the Swan being the first one she was able to find. "How did you sleep?"

She mumbles something in response, and he doesn't believe she was going for coherency, so he just nods, grabbing her box of cereal out of the cabinet as she gathers the rest of her supplies.

It is not until she has poured her cereal and taken her seat next to him at the counter that she speaks again. "I had a dream last night. It was about mommy."

Then, as if this is not the single most surprising thing she has ever said, she simply takes another bite of her cereal.

If his mug had not already been resting on the counter, it would have fallen out of his hand.

"What?"

"She was holding a little baby with dark hair, and she looked scared. She was asking for help, saying that only I could save her."

Killian has had his heart ripped out of his chest and squeezed as a form of torture, the single most painful thing he has ever had to physically endure. And that pain is just a pinprick compared to what he feels at this moment, the overwhelming weight of everything around him as he pieces together the mystery laid out before him this morning.

"How do you know it was your mother?" He's not completely sure how he even manages to form the words, his thoughts moving at a thousand miles a second and his heart pounding in his chest so hard Hope can probably hear it.

"You tell the best stories of her, so I know what she looks like, that she looks like me. "

Without realizing that his body is moving, Killian is up out of his seat and across the living room like a shot. "Finish your breakfast, sweetheart, then pack your suitcase. We're going to go on a trip."

Before Hope even gets the chance to reply, he is in his bedroom.

 

It's just over an hour before they are in the car and on the road, their bags on the backseat of Killian's Subaru and Hope in the passenger seat beside him, using his phone to make a playlist of their favorite songs before she pulls up the map.

"Alright, captain, where are we going?" she asks, the same way she does every time he needs her help navigating, but this morning, the joke hits him particularly hard, a stab in the gut after Hope’s breakfast revelation already stabbed him in the guts.

“I don’t know, sweetheart,” he says, his voice as even as he can manage, and when Hope’s eyes jump off the screen of his phone to his face, he shifts his eyes to her for just a moment before concentrating back on the road. He’s trying to come up with some sort of answer when he thinks about something that he has forgotten at some point over the last twelve years: the words Blue said to him after he revealed to her that he was the one traveling through the portal.

_“One day in the future, she will be the key to breaking the curse, to finding your family and being together again… When it is time, she will let you know. Keep hope close at hand, Captain. The day will come.”_

And then, the words in the background at the end of his dream that morning, as clear in his head as if Blue were speaking beside him: _“Only hope will lead you where you need to go.”_

Keep hope close at hand.

Only hope will lead him.

Only _Hope_ will lead him.

“Bloody hell,” he mumbles through his teeth, shaking his head at himself.

“Daddy, are you okay?”

He smiles across the car at his daughter. “Hope, my love, I know this might sound crazy, but you’re going to tell me where to go. I want you to think of your mother and tell me where your heart is leading you, can you do that for me?”

They’re stopped at a light, so he can look over at her, make sure that she understands, but she is just beaming at him, looking so much like her mother that it makes his heart soar and sink at the same time. 

The whole time, Hope herself was the answer.

 

The ride is only a few hours long. By the time they pull into the small town that Hope says is their destination, it’s barely past noon.

Killian is amazed. Sure, he has never doubted anything that a fairy has said to him, but something as simple as “ _keep Hope close at hand_?” How did he miss the obviousness of that for twelve years?

“Here, dad, this is where you want to be,” she says matter-of-factly, pointing to the parking lot behind a bed-and-breakfast with a diner attached.

 _Granny’s_. How small-towny.

Pulling into the parking lot, he’s taken back to his first experience with a small town, the first place he came to after going through the portal. At first, he thought it might work, not having that many people around him and Hope, but it quickly became overwhelming. Sure, there were fewer people, but _every single one of them_ wanted to know everything about him: where he came from, where Hope’s mother was, what he does for a living.

It was all too much for him, every question bringing back thoughts and memories of the wife he had to leave behind. So he stuck around for just long enough to figure out what he needs to do to get them to a city. A few days later, he loaded everything they had into a backpack and they were on a bus to Boston. He never looked back.

But now, back here at Granny’s, he’s pulled back into it all. And, if this town is anything like the one he found himself in twelve years ago, he can only imagine the questions they will have not only for him, but now for Hope, as well.

Hope, who hasn’t seen her mother for twelve years. Who was too young when they left to remember anything about her, who has relied on his storytelling abilities to keep her alive in her mind. Because he knows that’s what the questions will revolve around: _Emma._

Somehow, of all the places Hope's guidance could have brought them to, he hadn't anticipated another small town so much like the one he left behind twelve years before. 

“Stay here, cygnet, and I’ll go get us a room.”

When he climbs out of the car, his back cries out immediately, angry that he’s been cramped in the car for as long as he was, just as his stomach rumbles, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten since before Hope woke up, unable and unwilling to put anything in his sinking stomach.

Walking into the diner, he doesn’t know what he expects, but the bright colors and Jukebox were far from his expectation. But, even more surprising than that, is what he finds in the corner booth.

Because right there, just a few feet from the door, is Emma. The face he’s gone twelve years without seeing but that he hasn’t forgotten for a moment, looking just as perfect and beautiful as the day he left her behind. If he thought dreaming of her in distress the night before, thought hearing Hope talk about her that morning hurt, they were nothing compared to how he feels actually seeing here there, the man next to her with his arm around her shoulders. A man he doesn’t recognize, asserting ownership over his true love, his wife, the love of his life. And, just visible over the top of the booth, is the very top of a shock of dark hair, which turns to face him when the bell over the door rings as he walks through it. A young boy, around ten years old, with jet black hair and bright eyes.

It takes everything in him not to bound across the room and take Emma into his arms, tell her every moment for the rest of his life just how damned much he missed her.

But he can’t do that. Of course he can’t do that, because when her eyes meet his across the room, there is no change in her face. No recognition, not even a trace of interest. She has absolutely no idea who he is.

And _that_ hurts more than anything else that has happened in the last twelve years.

Sure, he was told that the curse would wipe memories, but he really didn’t want it to be true. Part of him believed that he would meet her sparkling green eyes and that would be it. They would see each other for the first time since he left her behind as he went through the wardrobe and, easy as that, the curse would be broken. Everyone would remember. Happily ever after, right?

No such luck.

“How can I help you, handsome?” he hears from beside him, and he turns to the counter, where Ruby is leaning over towards him, a bright smile covering his face, but she is familiar to him in the face only. But the Ruby from the Enchanted Forest, the Queen's best friend, looked nothing like the woman standing in front of him, wearing something that he can swear he’s seen someone wear on one of the Halloween bar crawls that made its way past their apartment every year, revealing more skin than it's covering. Something that, at one point in his life, he would have killed to see, back when he was still Captain Hook. But now, barely covering this woman that he was acquainted with in Misthaven, the greying Killian Jones is just a little weirded out.

“I, uh, need a room for a few days. For my daughter and I.”

He can physically see her face fall as she continues to take him in, starting with his comment about his daughter and ending, less than subtly, on his wedding ring, which has not left his hand since the day Emma put it there.

“Of course, let me take care of that for you.” She’s no longer smiling at him. “How many days?”

“I’m not really sure yet, does that pose a problem?”

“No, no, not a problem," she says, but something in her voice leads him to believe it to be true.

“We can start with a week?”

She smiles at him again, but nowhere near as brightly as she did when he first walked in. “Perfect.” Within just a few moments, she’s procured a key from under the counter and hands it to him as he lays a pile of bills on the counter. “You’ll be in room three.”

Thanking her, he turns to leave, allowing his glance to turn back towards Emma one last time before opening the door and leaving.

 

When the door closes behind him, the boy turns to his mother, his bright blue eyes shining with excitement.

“Who was that?” he asks, just as excited, but Emma does not respond. Her eyes are set on the door, where the stranger was just standing moments before.

“Just someone coming through town, I guess, bud,” Neal says, and when he tightens his arm around Emma’s shoulders, she does not realize it.

Her eyes are still set on the door, asking her own set of questions about the man who just rented a room.


	3. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so, apparently I have a lot of thoughts about this fic and my mind won't let me stop working on them. Not to mention all of the lovely comments and messages I've gotten about this story -- all of you fantastic readers are a large part of the reason I keep working on this as diligently as I have been. You guys are all the greatest! Don't stop!

As he opens the door to the room that will house them for the near future, Killian realizes something: he’s never stayed at a Bed and Breakfast. 

He’s never even felt the need to, if he is completely honest with himself. 

Not that the place isn’t lovely, with its light walls and dark wood, one large bed taking up most of the center of the room. It’s just that rooms like this, the whole concept of the Bed and Breakfast to begin with, hits him just a little too close to home. Selling out rooms from what used to be someone’s house? Being able to go downstairs and eat breakfast in an actual kitchen with other guests, other travelers and the host always wanting to know who you are, where you came from? He’s lived through this before, just in much different circumstances. 

Captain Hook was a fan of the “bed and breakfast” setup in the Enchanted Forest and in every realm that he could get his ship to. He would show up, drink everyone around him under the table, and take some woman back to his ship, or — even worse — upstairs to one of the rooms, leaving immediately afterward and never seeing her again. 

Sure, he enjoyed it while it was happening. He was a  _ pirate _ , the most vicious and hated pirate to sail any sea in those days. He was living what he believed to be his dream: long weeks on the sea, no one to tell him who he needs to be, what he needs to do. 

But in those days, days that he frequented “bed and breakfasts” as often as he could, he was a completely different man. A man with no family, with no love, his only reason for living being his revenge. 

He wasn’t a husband. He wasn’t a  _ father _ . That man, the man whose identity he slowly began to shed when he met Emma, would never have sacrificed his own life to raise Hope on his own in a strange land, something he realized many years ago, before he even went through the wardrobe. That man, the man he used to be, would have run back to the safety of his ship at the slightest sign of danger and run to a new realm, leaving anything he built behind him. 

That man had all of the wrong priorities. And, of course, he realizes that those priorities made it possible for him to live for hundreds of years, but none of the time he spent on the  _ Jolly Roger  _ comes anywhere close to the life he has lived in the past twenty years. 

When he and Hope had gone away for vacations, which did not happen very often (why would anyone spend  _ that much money  _ to take their child to a place that worships an animated mouse?) and always consisted of trips to places with long stretches of beach and exciting attractions for his little girl, they had stayed only in hotels. People in hotels do not care where you came from, why your daughter does not have a mother, do not constantly barrage you with questions about your life just because you come down to get a bloody cup of coffee. 

Hotels didn’t exist in any other realm, so they could not pull back memories of any other realm. 

As Hope pokes around their room, exploring every nook and cranny that she can find, Killian tosses his duffel bag next to the bed before tossing himself on it, burying his head in the pillow. 

He likes nothing about this situation. He likes nothing about this small town, which he knows is going to start suffocating him soon. He likes nothing about his lack of a plan, his lack of any sort of knowledge about what he needs to do to be reunited with his love. And, perhaps more than anything else, he likes nothing about that man from the diner, the smug look on his face and his arm slung over Emma’s shoulder like she was just a possession to him. 

He knew this wasn’t going to be easy. Breaking curses tended not to be. But he can’t help but ask himself questions that he probably shouldn’t. What if she really loves him? What if she doesn’t want to go back to the life they left behind because she likes the one she has found here more? Would he even be able to get through to her, given that she has been blinded by the curse? Does she even  _ want  _ to know the truth? 

_ Gods _ , he hates this. He hates every single thing about this. The only bright spot in all of this is his daughter, his Hope —  _ his hope _ — who climbs up on the bed next to him and nuzzles herself between his side and his arm, which he wraps around her small body. 

They stay like that for a while, and he almost believes that she has fallen asleep beside him until she rolls away from him, turning to face him as he rolls onto his side, so small against the large California King bed. 

“What’s the matter, darling?”

At first, she doesn’t answer, her brows knit in a way that makes him believe she is reading every line of his face, the same thing her mother used to do before answering a particularly difficult question. 

But he lets her search his face for whatever she is searching for, a few moments of silence passing between them before she finally speaks, her question pulling all of the air out of Killian’s lungs:

“Mommy’s here, isn’t she?”

His eyes go wide, suddenly unable to breathe. He doesn’t know what to say, but if he knows one thing about his daughter, it is that she inherited her mother’s ability to know a lie the moment it passes through his teeth. 

“Yes, she is. But how did you know, my cygnet?” 

She slides back across the bed, hugging him as best she can and he opens his arms to her. 

“I don’t know, daddy. Really, I don’t. But I can… I can  _ feel  _ it, somehow.”

Finally he is able to take a deep breath, and somehow, he does understand. Because with his arms wrapped around his daughter, he can feel it, too. He can feel that he is exactly where he is supposed to be, and all of the questions that tried to drown him just a few minutes ago beginning to move away as his daughter drifts off to sleep beside him. 

Not wanting to dive into the whole small town mentality yet, Killian researches pizza places that would deliver to their room (of which there is only one in town, not to his surprise in the least) as Hope sleeps next to him. (One of the perks he found with his lack of a left arm, he learned once Hope started falling asleep next to him, was that, unlike the right, it did not “fall asleep” when Hope decided she wanted to use it as a pillow.) 

He waits until she begins to stir from her nap, making sure that she is okay with their normal order of extra pepperoni before he calls in the order. (Pepperoni is something from this world that he  _ quickly  _ realized was heaven-sent, unlike large pick-up trucks, smart phones, and skiing.)

Their lunch arrives quickly, the shop only a block from where they are staying, which seems to be normal for “Storybrooke,” the name of the town, according to Google.  _ How quaint _ . After scarfing down a few pieces each, they agree on a movie on the television, but Killian is only half-watching, trying his best to formulate some kind of plan in his head while trying not to get caught up with the memory of Emma's eyes meeting his at the diner. 

He fails on both accounts. 

 

By the time Hope asks about dinner, Killian has come to the conclusion that he can't continue to avoid the town if he needs to figure out how to break the curse. He hopes for anywhere other than Granny's, the memory of Emma there with her cursed husband and their cursed son weighing too much on his already-straining heart. 

The only other alternative that appeals to both of them, though, is a burger-and-ice cream place, Any Given Sundae. When they walk in, it's thankfully almost empty, the only patrons an older couple in the back corner who Killian is thankful to notice fail to give him and Hope a second glance. He has to hold in a chuckle, though, when he realizes the woman behind the counter, who he assumes to be the owner, is one of Queen Elsa's aunts from Arendelle, the one who had the same ice powers as Emma's best friend. 

She owns the ice cream parlor.  _ Funny.  _

As always, he lets Hope choose their seat, halfway up the aisle opposite the older couple. Even though Killian has taken to trying to eat healthier recently (it absolutely had nothing to do with the strip of grey hair amid the sea of black, not at all), but he decides on a burger and fries anyway. His whole life has been flipped upside-down over the past few hours, so if his diet takes a sudden plummet, this is apparently a great time for it to happen. 

Hope is halfway through her chicken sandwich, and Killian's burger long gone, when the bell on the door jingles, causing Killian's eyes to snap up to see who joined them. When he sees that it is none other than the young boy that was sitting across from Emma at the diner earlier, his eyes go wide and his heart stops in his chest, waiting for one of this parents to follow him into the building. 

But that doesn't happen. Instead, the young boy meets Killian's eyes and smiles at him before crossing the restaurant to slide into the booth next to Hope. 

Before Killian has a chance to comment, he speaks, the words coming out quickly. “You’re the man who was in the diner last night.” 

“Aye, lad, what of it?” 

He shrugs, turning from Killian to Hope. “My parents were trying to figure out who you are, we’ve never seen you in Storybrooke before.” 

Killian expected the small-town questions to start the moment he stepped out of their room, but he never expected that a young boy would be the first source. Trying to sound as calm as he can, he replies, “My daughter and I are just here for vacation, some time away from the city.” 

Henry reaches across the table and takes a French fry off of Killian’s plate, and he is amazed just how outgoing he is. 

“That’s not true, though, is it?” the boy asks, and just as Killian starts to get defensive, Henry pulls a storybook out of his bag. “I know who you really are, and what you’re here for.” 

“Is that so?” Killian shares a look with his daughter across the table, her eyebrow cocked in exactly the same way his probably is, and he takes a sip of his water. 

“Yeah, of course,” Henry says, taking another fry off of his plate. “You’re Captain Hook.” 

He stays silent, taking another mouthful of water to try to keep his face completely blank. But when Henry speaks again, Killian is not able to keep a straight face.

“You’re also my dad.” 

Killian doesn’t know what to say, the last of his soda almost getting stuck in his throat.

“I’m afraid that’s entirely impossible, young man.” 

Completely ignoring Killian’s comment, Henry jumps up to get back to wherever it was he was going, but leaves his storybook with Killian. “If you don’t believe me, just read the book.” 

And he’s gone. 

Hope looks up at Killian, just as confused as he is. 

“Well, that was weird,” she says. 

Killian agrees, but is unable to respond as he starts flipping through the pages of the book. 

 

That night, he is unable to sleep. The light on his side of the bed is on all night as he flips through this book full of stories that  _ can’t  _ exist in this land, stories with pictures of people he knew. Stories he knows are true: how Snow White and Prince Charming met, when Belle saved Prince Philip, Mulan’s time with the Merry Men. 

He flips through pages covered with stories of himself, his stories from the past hundred years. His time in Neverland, the death of his brother. His relationship with Milah. Going back to Neverland. 

Meeting Emma, on a Royal mission to Neverland to try to gather information about Peter Pan. Falling in love with her. 

Marrying her. Having Hope. 

The Curse. 

But at the end of the book, on the very last page, is a picture of Emma and David standing in their room in the castle, purple smoke billowing around them, which must be from the last moments before the curse took them, not long after Killian and Hope went through the wardrobe. Emma is crying, David’s arms wrapped around her, but her own hands are laid across her stomach.

_ “But, not wanting to hurt her True Love any more than was already inevitable with their parting, Princess Emma did not tell Killian her secret: that she was pregnant again, going to have another child, and she carried this secret with her as she said goodbye to her husband and daughter, just as the curse was about to strike.” _

The book falls to his lap, his hands shaking as he reaches up to wipe a tear off his cheek. It was true.  _ All  _ of it was true. And if everything else was true, then the last part he read must have been true, as well. Emma didn’t tell him that she was pregnant again, so as to not hurt him any more than he was already hurting. 

For the first time in a while, Killian purposefully pulls her ring out from under his shirt, on a long chain next to Liam’s. 

And he has hope, for the first time in a while. 

Because Emma is living with cursed memories, believing that man he saw her with is her true love, believing he is Henry’s father. 

But now he knows the truth, and Henry knows the truth. 

It’s time to tell Hope. 


	4. Chapter Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, one and all, for your lovely comments and messages. Each and every one of them have come together to create this chapter. It’s short and sweet, but there might be another in the next few days, as well.

Killian is just out of the shower when Hope begins to stir, having tightly wrapped herself up with the second layer of blankets that Killian turned on top of her when he got up. He pulls on his jeans as she rolls her face into the light pouring through the window he opened when he got up.

She feels for him next to her, and when she only finds cold sheets, she looks terrified for a moment, as if she has ever woken up to learn that her entire family has left her, and Killian feels his heart try to pound out of his chest.

Killian knows that feeling, the feeling of waking up and being alone. He has felt it far more times in the years of his life than any single man should be able to experience it. And for all the times Killian has woken up alone, he has made sure that his daughter would never feel the same way tenfold, the way his own father failed to do drastically.

Hell, his own father was one of the ones who left him behind, just a young, terrified boy. Thankfully he was a boy who had his brother to look up to.

Until he didn't. That day, the first day he woke up knowing that the world no longer had a place for Liam Jones, the first day he woke up as Captain Jones, as a pirate, after claiming the newly-dubbed _Jolly Roger_ as his own, was the day Killian decided not to open his heart to another.

And when he did, when he tried to change himself back and let Milah in, all he did was create another situation where he could wake up alone after she, too, was taken from him.

Looking down at his daughter, watching her blue eyes brighten when she finds him across the room, he realizes that he has never been thankful for the lowest points of his life. Because through all of it, through all the loss and the hurt and the heartbreak that the hundreds of years of his life had turned into, it all got him here. Without everything that had happened to him, the time he spent in the Navy and in Neverland, stretching the years of his life far beyond what any man should be able to live, he never would have met Emma.

He never would have started a family, and this beautiful girl, spitting image of her mother save her piercing blue eyes, would never have been gifted to him.

“Good morning, my love,” Killian says, moving to sit beside her on the bed, and she curls into his lap, mumbling incoherently. “I was thinking we should go out to breakfast, how do you feel about that?”

In a flash, she is awake, the smile stretching across her face only causing her already-bright blue eyes to sparkle. “Pancakes?”

“Of course, cygnet, you can get pancakes.”

She jumps out of his lap and begins to dig through her suitcase, pulling out clothes for the day and quickly replacing her pajamas with them.

They agree on Granny's, Hope dead-set on chocolate chip pancakes, and though she is practically bouncing out of her seat when she tells Ruby her order, she goes quiet when she sees the serious expression that now covers Killian’s face.

“What’s the matter, daddy?” she asks as he is still trying to gather his words, momentarily wondering how she is able to read him so well at just twelve years old. But then the answer hits him just as he is trying to find the right words to say: she is just like her mother.

“I want to tell you a story,” he says, smiling across the table at her.

Instantaneously, her entire face lights up. “Is it about mommy?”

“Of course it’s about mommy. Aren’t all of my stories about mommy?”

She nods her head vigorously, her smile somehow brightening.

He begins by recalling the same story he has been telling her almost every night since they went through the wardrobe: that her mother left to save them all, and that one day they would all be reunited and could be a family again. The truth.

But then he begins to tell her the rest, finally strong enough to get through it without breaking down, because he can _feel_ his hope of being with Emma again coursing through his veins.

How they’re from a different place, a place full of fairy tales, where an Evil Queen placed a curse on the whole land so they would forget everything, everyone. But before the curse could be cast, the leader of all the fairies, Blue, told Killian that when the time would come to break the curse and bring their family back together again, he would know, as long as he had his daughter by his side. So right as the curse hit, Killian took her and left, as quickly as they could, so that they could be together, so she wouldn’t have to grow up alone, knowing that one day, she would be able to break the curse.

He has just finished this part of the story when their breakfasts arrive, her short stack and his veggie omelet (with a side of bacon, because who cares about diets when you’re about to save the world?), so he takes a break while cutting her pancakes into small squares, but as she covers the plate in thick syrup and begins to devour her breakfast, he continues: 

“So you and I went through the wardrobe together, leaving your mommy behind. It was the hardest thing I have ever had to do, but I knew that as long as we were together, we would be safe. And the portal sent us to this new land, to somewhere not far from where the curse put this town, and we walked along the road until we found a small little town. We tried to stay there, but they wanted to know everything about us, and every time someone asked me where your mother was, it’s like I was leaving her behind all over again, like my heart was breaking time and time again. So we moved to the city, where I knew we would not be asked nearly as many questions, and I kept you safe there with me, hoping for the day when I would know that it was time to search for your mother.

“And then I had a dream. The first dream I had of Emma that wasn’t just a memory for years. She was holding a baby with dark hair and bright blue eyes, and she was asking for help. Begging for it. She said that only I could save her, and I knew the time was right for us to come and find her. That’s what I was thinking about yesterday morning when you woke up, and then you told me that you dreamt of her, too, the same dream. It was a _sign_. And that’s why we left so quickly, because I was so ready to find your mother and have our family back again.”

Hope’s eyes have gone wide with wonder, her pancakes momentarily forgotten about as she thinks about what it means for them to have had the same dream, at the same time. And then, just as she knits her brow with thought, the bell over the door rings and Killian’s eyes shoot to the door.

He can’t help the smile that takes over his face, a smile that seeps down into every inch of him as he realizes the irony that the universe has at that moment. Because there, in front of him, is Emma, police badge hanging off the hip of her jeans, as brilliantly beautiful as the day he met her. She meets his eyes and for a moment, she seems almost startled by his presence there, but it disappears just as quickly and turns to a soft smile.

Once again, he fights the urge to jump out of the booth and wrap his arms around her, do whatever needs to be done to break this bloody curse. But he holds himself together, his hand gripping the edge of the seat next to his leg; and when she turns away from him, he releases his breath and lets his hand relax.

When her back is facing them, Killian leans across the table to Hope and points to Emma, leaning against the counter as Granny finds the bag that holds her lunch. “You see that woman there, though?” Hope’s eyes grow wide, following Killian’s finger. “That’s your mother. Right now, she may not remember us, but she will soon.”

He’s not sure what kind of reaction he expects from Hope, but what he receives is surely not it: “Oh, I know, daddy. I’ve been dreaming about her for weeks.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because every time I ask about mommy, you get so sad, and I don’t like to make you sad.”

Her voice is so even, so matter-of-fact, that at that moment, Killian’s heart breaks for her. He’s going to break this curse if it’s the last thing he does. His family _will_ be together again.

“How are you going to make mommy remember us?” she asks, and he is pulled back to reality.

“Well, I haven’t quite been able to figure that one out yet.”

But he has a few ideas on where to start.

 

After breakfast, the first stop is the harbormaster. There is something Killian has been dying to do for more than twelve years, since before he left the Enchanted Forest. For quite a few years before even that, actually.

When they walk into the office, the familiar face behind the desk pulls a smile to Killian’s face. While the man’s name tag reads “William,” Killian has gone much of his life simply referring to the man as “Smee,” the man who used to be his first mate.

“How can I help you?” he asks when they approach the desk, not even a flash of recognition in the man’s eyes.

“I have a boat that I would like to dock here for the time being.” Hoping that it is enough to satisfy the curiosity the man has always had, Killian adds, “It’s been docked a while down the coast, but the fees for there cost me an arm and a leg.” He chuckles slightly, not even meaning to make the joke, but Smee does not find it funny. If his memories really have been wiped, then there is no reason for him to even get it, no reason to know about Killian's missing hand.

Smee gives him a price sheet, and it is cheaper to pay for a few weeks at a time than smaller increments, which makes sense. Since Killian has no idea what acceptable dock prices for the Maine coast are these days, he agrees with the offer, though part of him wants to make a counter-offer just to see if Smee is still as timid and non-confrontational as he has always been.

“I’ll come up with it in the next few days to dock it here,” Killian says, and Smee just nods in agreement.

“Is there anything else I can do for you, sir?” he asks, and after all the years Killian has spent in Smee’s company, he recognizes the disinterest in the sound of his voice. Part of him, a part that has been deeply repressed for quite a while now, begins simmering in anger, but he also realizes (with the more rational, _non_ -pirate part of his brain) that Smee has absolutely no memory of him, has no reason to believe that Killian can read him as well as he is able to.

“Actually, do you mind if my lass and I borrow a small vessel for the day? It would surely be a waste of a perfectly marvelous opportunity to do anything else with the weather we've been graced with than spend some time on the water.”

Smee agrees again, renting them a small boat for the next four hours.

As they walk back through the doors of the small office, Killian feels Hope pull on his sleeve.

“But daddy, you don’t have a boat, do you?”  she asks, her voice just above a whisper, as if she realizes that Killian is hiding a secret.

“You know I always like to have a few tricks up my sleeve, love,” he says, winking down at her.

The boat they rented is primitive, simply a rowboat with a small motor attached, but it is simple to teach Hope the basics: speed up, slow down, left, right. It’s much more basic than the boats they have rented in the Boston harbor for days that Killian just needed to feel the salt water in his veins again, and she takes to it quickly.

Her father’s daughter.

It really is a beautiful day, so they take their time rowing out onto open water, relishing in the feeling of the sun on his skin, the scent of the real ocean that he has never succeeded in finding near Boston.

Once he thinks they are far enough away from prying eyes, he pulls out the small bottle that has been weighing down his pocket for twelve years, the bottle Blue handed him before the curse, holding it up for Hope to look at between his fingers. It’s no more than three inches long, less than an inch in diameter, but sitting inside is a miniature version of the very ship that he called his home for so long. A shrunken version. 

His _Jolly Roger_.  

His face is lit up in a smile, but when he looks down at his daughter, she is much more confused. “It’s a bit small, isn’t it, daddy?”

He can’t help the scowl that comes because of her criticism, and he tells her, “It is unwise to insult the size of a pirate’s ship, love,” before tossing the bottle into the open water, the very thing that he has been dreaming of doing for twelve years.

For a moment, nothing happens, and Killian worries that he has done something wrong, forgotten some sort of magical step required to get his ship back — his ship that he may have just thrown into the open ocean.

Then, before both of their eyes, she appears, smaller than their rowboat at first, but multiplying in size each second, bigger and bigger as they watch, until she sits before them, finally full size and in all her glory once more.

When he turns to her, her eyes are wide, practically bugging out of her face, and sparkling in the light of the sun and the reflections off the waves, much in the same way Emma always told him his did.

“My love, I present the _Jolly Roger_.”


	5. Chapter Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whaaaat, another chapter so soon?! There are a lot of things in this chapter that set up for future chapters, I hope you enjoy! And again, I can't thank you enough for the comments and messages about this story. It means so much to me, and the fact that it means so much to so many of you is incredible. Thanks for reading!

“Daddy, it’s beautiful!”

Hope has seen her fair share of ships in her twelve years of life; Killian made sure of it, taking her to museums and tours, the U. S. S. Constitution a normal location for them to spend a few hours at least once a month. But, looking at the _Jolly Roger_ looming in front of her, you would think by the look on her face that she had never seen a ship before.

Though Killian is aware that the _Jolly_ is perhaps more beautiful and pristine than many, thank you very much.

“She, darling,” he corrects.

“What?”

“Ships are referred to as _she_.”

“But why?”

Killian looks down at his daughter once more, resting his hand on her shoulder. “Because, my darling lass, women are the most important thing in the life of a man, just as ships are the most important thing to the life of a sea captain.” He leans down, trying his hardest to keep his balance, a skill that has lost its ease since the last time he was at sea, just so he can whisper in her ear, “Would you like to board her?”

Hope nods her head vigorously, and Killian is both amazed and unsurprised at her response. The _Jolly_ should have been her home for the past twelve years. Her life started on that ship, both from conception and birth, and it is completely unfair to her that she has not been able to even know about the ship that meant so much to her own family. All Killian can do now is make up for lost time.

Once they have reached the _Jolly_ with the rowboat, Killian tethers it to the side of the ship so they can climb up the ladder, allowing Hope to take her time and go first.

“Welcome home, my darling,” he says, taking her into his arms as they stand on the deck. “Would you like a tour!”

“Yes, please!”

Holding her on his hip as long as he can muster (his bones have apparently gotten old, too), he walks around the ship, taking his time to show her all the cabins, the crew’s quarters, the kitchen, before walking her around the deck, her hand clamped around his, showing her the pieces of the riggings, how to ready her to begin sailing with all of the ropes and the sails, before ending triumphantly at the helm.

Being behind the helm — _his helm_ — finally, after so long, and able to have her on the open water instead of just tied to the docks in Misthaven as King David insisted, is somehow even a better feeling than Killian imagined it would have been. Including its time in Misthaven when Killian sailed under another flag and sailing the _Jolly_ was “no longer needed,” in David’s words, it has been more than fifteen years since Killian was last able to sail her.

And, for a man who has been alive for more than three hundred years, those fifteen have seemed incredibly long.

He is back where he belongs, back where he was _made_ to be, with his daughter standing beside him, her small hands looking even smaller when compared to the size of the helm. His life is _almost_ complete.

All he needs now is his wife back.

They sail back to the dock in silence, Hope watching in awe when Killian turns the helm and the sails shift direction, and Killian watching lovingly as his daughter is finally able to appreciate one of the most important possessions in his life. When they reach the dock, Killian expects to find Smee outside of the office, having seen the _Jolly_ come in, but no one is there.

Even as he sails to where Smee told him to dock his ship, the entire shore remains empty, completely devoid of movement — which Killian finds incredibly interesting, since there were people not only on the dock and the dockside when they took off, but also scattered across the beach. But as he climbs off the deck and tethers himself to the dock, everything around him is silent, still.

Curious.

Before they leave, Killian takes one of the envelopes from next to the office door, slips a handful of bills in it, enough to cover the first few weeks, and slides it under the door with his name scrawled across the front.

“What’s next, daddy?” Hope asks, taking his hand once more as they walk down the abandoned dock and back towards the town.

“Next is the pawn shop near Granny’s, I’m hoping they have something that I have been missing for quite a while.”

“How would they have something of yours? I thought you were never here before?”

Killian nods, realizing just how much more to this story there is than the pieces he told Hope just that morning. Pieces that he will have to continue to explain to her if he wants her to understand the plan he has formulated, even if it is just pieces of a plan.

“In the book Henry gave me to read, it says that the pawn shop is where things people lost in the curse all came to when the Evil Queen created this land, especially things that would help people here remember who they really are. You already heard Henry say that I was Captain Hook, but one of the things that I left with your mother when we went through the wardrobe was my hook for her to remember me by. But since everything related to the truth is hidden in that shop, I'm hoping that my hook will be there, as well.”

Hope is silent for a moment, and when Killian turns his head down to her, she is nodding.

“Okay, daddy,” she says. “If you say that's right, then I believe you.”

 _Gods_ , she really is too good for him.

 

What he doesn't expect to find when he walks through the door of the pawn shop, however, is his crocodile, the man he chased for decades in hopes of finally getting his revenge for taking Milah from him.

Though in this land, the name Rumpelstiltskin wouldn't do, so he goes instead by Mr. Gold, owner of the pawn shop that holds the lost and magical artifacts from the Enchanted Forest.

Seeing his face before him after so long — though, of course, it's a much different face than he remembers, far less scaly and reptilian and more… normal — makes Killian do a double take, and he is happy that Hope is slowly making her way around the shop, taking in everything that's available. Does Gold have _his_ memories? The man who taught the Evil Queen how to do magic, the reason she was able to cast a spell in the first place, nonetheless a curse?

Swallowing his silence with a large gulp, he approaches the counter instead of following Hope around the room, hoping that Rumple has no idea that he's Rumple in the first place.

“Good afternoon,” Gold says, turning his face from Hope to Killian for the first time since they entered the shop. “How may I help you?”

By the tone of his voice, the lack of recognition on his face, Killian continues to assume the man's memories have also been erased, though Rumpelstiltskin was never a man that allowed himself to be read easily.

“I'm looking for something, and from what I've been able to learn, this is the place it seems most likely to have ended up.”

Gold nods, just as another man appears from the shop behind him — a man who seems familiar to Killian, though he is unable to place his face. It's not his biggest concern at the moment.

“Is that so?” Gold asks, maintaining his unresponsive look. “What is it that I can help you find?”

“Well, it's a hook —” he starts, but before he can say any more, Hope calls out from across the room:

“Daddy, Daddy, I think I found it!”

Killian turns towards his daughter's voice, then smiles across the counter at Mr. Gold and the man standing behind him before moving over to where she is standing.

He follows her point into the case in front of her, and she is correct. There, between a bracelet he knows he's seen on Ariel before and the hilt of a sword bearing the Camelot sigil, sits his hook. Turning back towards the counter, he points into the case in front of him.

“There it is!”

Gold turns to the man behind him, gesturing towards the case Killian is pointing into.

“Neal, my boy, will you assist this man?” he asks, then disappears into the back without another word, even before getting a response from Neal.

_Neal._

Suddenly, the pieces lock together. Neal is married to Emma here because of the curse, but Neal is also Rumple’s son, which would make him…

Bae, who he hadn’t seen since he was a boy, though he must have returned to the Enchanted Forest at some point in order to be here now.

Trying to keep the surprise off his face, Killian simply turns his attention back towards the case, keeping his eye on the hook as Neal pulls it off the velvet underneath it and hands it to him.

“Will that be everything for you?”

Killian is about to say yes, especially knowing that everything here, like his hook, already belongs to someone else. But, out of sheer curiosity, he begins to look around the shop instead of just paying for his hook and leaving.

He follows Hope to a display of jewelry, smiling down at her when she turns her eyes up to him, but his smile disappears when he sees what she is reaching out to touch: a necklace with a small metal ship wheel hanging from it.

A necklace that he bought Emma on his last voyage as a pirate, before he offered her father to give up his title to marry her.

“And this necklace,” he says, nodding down at Hope as she begins to take it down off the display. “Yes, that will be everything.”

As he pulls his wallet out of his pocket, the bell over the door rings, and he turns around to find the one face he was surprised to have gone this long without encountering:

Regina. The Evil Queen.

Killian tries to play dumb, hoping that she, too, is cursed, but he knows she can’t be — it’s her curse, why would she curse her own memories?

Slowly, dramatically, she walks over to him until she is just a few inches from his face. “I’ve been searching for you,” she says quietly, the smile on her face showing that she is trying to seem civil, but he knows from experience that _civil_ has never been something she has been good at. She turns to Gold, who has come back into the shop. “Would I be able to borrow your office for a few minutes while I have a chat with our newcomer?”

“Of course, Mayor Mills,” Gold agrees, gesturing back towards the office, and Killian follows Regina there, his hand wrapped tightly around Hope’s, but Regina turns around to stop them when she realizes this.

“You can leave your daughter out here. This will only take a few moments.”

Hope looks up at him, her bright eyes suddenly full of terror, not even sure why she is afraid, but Killian’s eyes narrow, never leaving Regina’s.

“No,” he says firmly, shaking his head.  “No, whatever you have to say to me, you can say it to my daughter, as well. I’m not going anywhere without her.”

It’s a challenge, more of one than Killian was intending, but Regina just frowns, then after a moment, she nods and turns back around.

Only then does Killian turn down to Hope and smile at her, adding a quick wink before following Regina into the back of the pawn shop.


	6. Chapter Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentine's Day! We're getting closer to all the big action... Enjoy! As always, thank you all for the lovely comments, you keep this story going 💕💕

After closing the door to the office behind her, Regina turns on her heel to face him. It may have been twelve years since the last time he saw her, twelve years from the last time she threatened him and his family, but he can still tell that she is trying to intimidate him with the glare covering her face, but it doesn’t work.

He knows better.

When she speaks, her voice is rife with poison, a voice that he absolutely did not miss. “You have a lot of nerve coming here, Hook,” she says.

It's been years since anyone called him Hook, even before his trip through the wardrobe, and her use of it makes him wince. That's not who he is anymore, not who he has been in a long time. Even the Evil Queen knows that.

“You and I both know that I haven’t gone by that moniker for years, even before you cast your curse and sent everyone here.”

She glares at him before turning her eyes down to Hope. “But I didn’t _send_ everyone here, did I?” she asks, and though Killian doesn't dare pull his eyes from Regina’s, he feels Hope as she moves to stand behind Killian. “It seems I missed a few… stragglers along the way.” Hearing Regina talk about his daughter in the first place makes his blood boil, but hearing her call Hope a _straggler_ makes it worse. “I’ve been waiting for you to show up here for years, so I can finally take you down.” She reaches her slender arm out towards him, poking him in the chest with the end of her long, manicured finger to accentuate the last three words.

Even so, he does not move to back  away from her, the soles of his boots planted firmly on the floor of the small office. “Aye, that may be so, but I have a feeling that you will do no such thing.”

She leans in closer to him once more, and he can both feel and _sense_ when Hope's grip on the back of his shirt tightens. “And what makes you believe that, Hook?” This time when she says it, she pairs it with a raise of her brow, a challenge if Killian has ever seen one.

He can't help but play along. There are very few things that Killian misses from his days as a pirate, but being able to put on the tough persona is one of those things. If that's what he has to do to get his family back, then perhaps that is a sacrifice that he is willing to make. “Well, you may be a few things, Regina,” he half-smiles, accentuating her own name, and he can tell that it strikes a nerve, referring to her as that when he knows better, when he knows who she _really_ is. “And though Evil Queen may be among them, you would never lay harm to a child, would you?” Reaching behind him, he pulls Hope around to stand in front of him, keeping his hands on her shoulders. “And as for me, you can never kill me. You and I both know that I haven’t been the owner of my own heart for a very long time.”

She glares at him, trying to size herself up against him, but he stands a few inches taller than her. The only thing she has ever had that’s been stronger than him is magic, and she is without it here, so she stands down, taking half a step back from him.

But when she speaks, her voice is lower than before, a smile plastered across her face. Whether it is real or not, Killian is unsure, but he also is not sure which one would be more intimidating. “I might not be able to take you down, Jones, but there is one thing that I can do: I can throw you in jail.”

“No!” This is the first time Hope speaks up since Regina entered the pawn shop. “Please, no.” She turns around to Killian, her bright eyes brimming with tears as she looks up to him.

He narrows his eyes at Regina before squatting down to take Hope's chin in his hand. “Hope, darling, it's okay. I'll make sure you're okay.”

She tries to smile, her lip still quivering.

“Wait, wait,” Regina says from behind Hope, and when Killian looks back up at her, she has crossed her arms over her chest and is smiling at him. “You named the girl _Hope_?”

Killian feels his face redden. He hadn't thought about the story behind his girl's name for almost as long as she'd had one. Like leaving Emma behind, it was one of the things that he repressed for as long as he could, one of the things that hurt too much to be constantly barraged with.

“Uh, yes, I did,” Killian says, his hand finding that damned spot behind his ear.

Regina starts laughing. “That's a good joke there, Jones,” she says, covering her face with her hand. “That might —” She actually has the _gall_ to start laughing at him. “That might be the funniest thing I have ever heard,” she comments, then pushes past him and out of the office, her laughter still audible on the other side of the door.

It all comes back to him in an instant, memories from the Enchanted Forest that he has repressed below the happiness he found with his daughter beside him:

After threatening multiple times for longer than Killian had even been around to “take away all hope of happiness” for the Misthaven Royal Family — hell, longer than Emma had even been around — Regina tried to cast curses, but Emma and her family had always been able to stop them. But they were too distracted by Emma's pregnancy and the birth of the baby to notice that she had been working on a new one, one stronger and more potent than all the rest, and no one even realized it.  

Once the baby was born, someone brought the news of Regina's curse. It was almost ready. 

But Emma and Killian never decided on a name. This was normal for the first few weeks, giving her a little while before her name chooses itself, before the need for a formal naming ceremony took place. When they tried to decide on one, just three weeks after her birth, Blue had found them again, warned them against  _ giving  _ her a name in the first place while Regina was actively building a curse that they were unable to stop. If Regina got a hold of their little girl’s name, who knew the kind of damage she could do with her, the terrors she could build into the curse for their daughter. 

Names are the strongest form of magic. If she could wait to be transported out of Regina’s grasp to be given one of her own, she would be that much safer. It was difficult, not calling her anything formal for the first few months of her life — but if that was what they needed to do to ensure her safety, then it was a sacrifice they would have to make. 

_ Once they got through the wardrobe and he was walking through the woods with her, he realized that they were safe now, away from any harm that Regina could bring to them, and it was time to decide for good. They had discussed calling her Alice, after Killian’s long-dead mother, but when he turned down to her, overwhelmed by the brightness in her blue eyes that have no idea what has happened to them, he suddenly wasn’t sure any more. _

_ “The Evil Queen may be able to separate us from your mother, my darling, but she will never be able to take away our hope.” _

_ And in that moment, it felt right.  _

_“Hope,” he says again, looking down at her, and he decided._

He looks down at her now, older and more knowledgeable than the small baby that he held in his arms that day, and sees the same hope in her eyes that he saw that very first day. That he has seen every day for the last twelve years. Hope that his family will be reunited once more.

 

Though David tries to argue with Regina when he shows up in the cruiser, there is nothing he can do to make her change her mind. Regina is the Mayor of Storybrooke, and if she claims that Killian was “disturbing the peace,” backed up by both Mr. Gold's, he has no choice but to follow her demand and  take him to jail.

“What about the girl?” Regina asks, somehow beating Killian to the words on the tip of his tongue.

Whether David notices the fake care in her voice or not, he still smiles at Killian while leading them both out of the pawn shop. “No worries, Madam Mayor. My wife and I will take care of Miss Hope.”

Once the door to the shop closes behind them, David claps Killian on the shoulder. He can tell that the sheriff wants to smile at him, but it just won't come. Killian doesn't blame him.

“I wish there was something I could do for you, Mr. Jones,” he says, opening the back door of the cruiser for Killian to climb into, but he lets his daughter go first instead.

“Taking care of my little girl is more than I ever would have asked of you.” He climbs in behind her, pressing a soft kiss to her temple. She is trying her very best to hold herself together, but he can tell that she's terrified.

And, if he's honest with himself, he is, too, though the last thing he wants to do is let Hope know that.

“Are you sure your wife will be okay with it, sheriff?”

“Don't worry about Mary Margaret,” he says, smiling softly at Killian through the rear view mirror. “I just wish there was more I could do, that I could get you out of this whole situation.”

Killian thinks back on all the times he's gone up against Regina, always knowing that he had something she needed (during his pirate days, at least) — and after that, he always had Emma and her strength behind him. Realizing this, he's surprised he's gone this long in Storybrooke without angering the Evil Queen. But if the most she can do here is throw him in jail for a few days, then he has nothing to be afraid of.

 

But staying there without Hope proves to be much harder than just _staying there._ The next morning, Emma is on duty when he wakes up, his sleep more restless than it has been in ages. Every muscle in his body aches from the cot, a terrible step below even the hammocks in the crews quarters of the _Jolly_ , but even the pain in his back is nothing compared to the pain in his heart.

“Please, Emma,” he begs, trying to appeal to the parent in the deputy, the sympathetic heart of the woman he married. “She must be terrified. She's never met anyone here, never lived with anyone besides myself for almost her whole life, and now she is staying with someone I don't even know in a town that she is still trying to get used to. I just want to…” He swallows, trying to hold himself together. “I just want to see my little girl.”

His emotions get the best of him, his voice breaking at the very end, and _this_ is what does it for Emma. Of course she feels bad for him, for Hope. She can't even imagine what that little one is going through, especially since she knows that Henry has spent his whole life in Storybrooke and still has trouble sleeping anywhere other than his own bed.

David is coming in soon to relieve her, so she calls him and asks him to bring Hope to the station, assuring him that she will take the girl back home when she leaves at the end of her shift.

After taking a few moments to respond, David realizes that there is no way he can say no to her offer, so he agrees, showing up a few hours later with not only Hope, but also Henry, who insisted on coming with.

It only lasts a few minutes, but when Emma unlocks the door to the cell and Hope rushes in to wrap her arms around his waist, it almost makes up for every moment he spent there without her that night.

“Do you think you can last one more night without me, cygnet?”

Much to his surprise, Hope nods her head confidently. “Henry is going to stay at the Nolan's with me tonight, so I won't be all alone.”

Killian wants to reach out and hug the boy, as well — and the smile stretched across his face makes Killian believe that Henry probably wouldn't complain about it — but he does not know how Emma would respond, so he simply holds out his hand for him to shake.

“I thank you kindly for that, lad. I have no doubts that you'll keep her safe just as I would.”

Henry responds in kind, either picking up Killian's signals overwhelmingly well or failing to see them at all, but he shakes his hand and smiles back all the same. “Of course, Mr. Jones,” is all he says.

A beat passes between the motley crew gathered in the room before David clears his throat and turns to Emma. “I think you should get the kids home now, Emma,” he says, obviously unsure how to feel about the whole situation, but Emma just nods, though both Hope and Henry groan.

Hugging him again, Killian looks down at Hope. “Be strong for me, darling. I'll see you tomorrow.” He kisses her cheek, and she nods vigorously at him, kissing his cheek in return, before the three of them file out the door, Emma turning around at the last minute to wave to him before she is out of his sight.

After a moment, David turns to him, eyebrows knit across his forehead. “Your daughter looks nothing like you, you know that?” David asks, and Killian turns his head to the window where he watches Emma load them into the car.

When he replies, his words come with a smile attached to them, his fingers finding Emma's ring attached to the chain around his neck, a motion he's found himself doing more often. “Aye, she looks just like her mother, though.”


	7. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Greetings from the Chicago O'Hare airport! My trip has become the hugest fucking mess, but it got you another chapter, so it's all been worth it.

Driving back from the station to Mary Margaret’s house, Emma is unsure of what to do. Henry seems to be striking up a fast friendship with Hope Jones, and there is something about her father that she finds so… intriguing. 

But it’s not a good time. She has enough problems, enough things to patch up with the father of her  _ own  _ child, nonetheless a stranger from Boston who appeals to her curiosity. But there is something so welcoming to her about Killian, something that seems to draw her in, that she just cannot avoid. Mostly, it scares her. She is her own person, with her own life and her own problems, and she doesn’t need a single father and his absolutely adorable daughter to come and throw a wrench in everything she has been building. 

“Do you like living in the city, Hope?” she asks, finding the girl’s bright eyes in her rear view mirror. She’d never been to the city, barely been out of Storybrooke since the wind blew her here when she was a teenager who ran away from her foster family, but they always intrigued her. In the city, she could have been whoever she wanted to be, could have joined the mass of people and been anyone other than  _ Emma the orphan.  _ But she still always stayed in this small town, never leaving the city limits. 

“There’s always so much to do,” she answers, her voice rife with excitement. “Me and my daddy go on adventures all the time.” 

Without realizing it, Emma’s heart begins to ache, both for herself and for her son. Emma never had a parent to take her on adventures; Henry only has a father that does the bare minimum, spending time with him when it’s necessary, a special occasion, but barely more than that. 

“What kind of adventures?” 

“Well, there’s a really cool ship museum near where we live where he really likes to spend time, and he takes me out on boats on the water when it’s warm outside. We walk to the park, or to the movies, or to the place down the street that has the best ice cream. On the weekends we go buy lots of fruits and veggies from the farmer’s market, and if there are bands playing on the sidewalks, he always stops and listens and gives them some money.”

It all sounds so thrilling to Emma, much more exciting that life in a small town where every day is the same. She’s never outwardly craved a different life, but hearing Hope talk about the excitement of her life in the city makes her realize that she is doing just that. 

“What about your mom?” Henry asks, and Emma is too caught up in her own head to hear him right away, or to see the sly smile that covers her son’s face as he asks the question. She wants to say something to Henry, apologize to Hope for his bluntness, but before she can climb out of her own head and put her words in the right order, Hope has already started to answer.

“I haven't seen her since I was just a baby. My dad and I had to leave to keep me safe from a really bad lady and she couldn't come with, but one day it'll be safe again and we can all be together.” 

Her story sounds unbelievable, like a lie that a parent would tell their child in place of a much darker truth. But, somehow, Emma believes her. Somehow, she can tell that Hope is telling the truth, not only that she really was separated from her mother, but that she will be back with her someday. 

More than that, she feels like she  _ knows _ the story, like it’s buried somewhere deep down in her memory but that she’s heard it before. Which is, of course, impossible. She’s only just met them, mere hours compared to the years since it must have happened. Totally, absolutely impossible. 

_ Or, is it?  _

 

The rest of her day is a haze, staring at the TV without actually watching it while Henry watching very intently next to her. Every once in a while, he turns to her, reacting somehow to what’s on the screen, and Emma tries her best to play along, but it’s like her mind is stuck. Stuck on trying to figure out why Killian Jones seems so intriguing, so  _ familiar _ . Why she can’t shake the feeling she’s heard Hope’s story before. Why every time she tries to close her eyes to clear her head, she sees him standing there in his cell, practically falling apart at the seams worrying about his daughter. 

Trying to sleep that night isn’t much better. She spends the whole night tossing and turning, and when she dreams, it is of a blonde-haired, blue-eyed baby girl wrapped up in her arms, of pirate ships and castles and purple smoke, and a man with blazing blue eyes that fades from her memory the closer to consciousness she climbs. 

 

 

The next morning, her eyes still heavy from her inability to sleep soundly, she walks into the station bearing three cups of coffee from Granny’s in a cardboard carrier. Or, more appropriately, her hot chocolate, Graham’s cappuccino, and a plain black coffee for their guest, who is still asleep in the cell when she enters. 

“Anything to report, Graham?” she asks, trying to fight off the yawn that tries to rear its head, but he just shakes his head, taking the cup from her hand. 

“Jones here is still asleep, obviously. How he can sleep so soundly on that cot, I’ll never be sure. He’s only got a few hours left before we’re allowed to release him, and I’ve left his paperwork on your desk.”

“Thanks,” she replies, and he grabs his jacket from the back of his chair and is out the door, leaving her alone with Killian. 

Slowly, she walks up to the bars of the cell, watching his chest rise and fall with his soft, slow breaths. Not only is he sound asleep on the cot, but he’s laying on his back, the arm with the brace still attached curled up under the pillow and his other hand resting on his chest. How he can be comfortable like that is a mystery to her, but that’s not the thought at the forefront of her mind. 

No, instead, she is focused on the his face, the lines and the soft curves stretched out over his features as he sleeps. She notices the specks of red in his beard, the lines of grey visible in the waves of his hair, all as she tries to figure out why he looks so damned familiar to her. She knows it’s not possible; if he’s never been to Storybrooke before and she hasn’t left in almost twenty years, there is no way that they ever would have seen each other before. 

But standing there, watching him sleep, she realizes more than ever that he looks incredibly familiar, as if the memory of him is lying in wait to be found at the right moment. 

When he starts to stir, she is pulled from her trance with a start, rushing back from where she was standing to take a seat at her desk before he realizes she is watching him. He groans, a noise that comes from somewhere deep in his chest, and raises his arms above his head. Once again, she finds herself watching him, up until the last moment before he pulls his eyes open. 

For a moment, he's startled, forgetting where he is. After years of waking up in a bed as opposed to the cot on the ship, the hard surface under his groaning shoulders pulls his memory back to the  _ Jolly _ — but when he feels the cot beneath him instead of the mattress that his suddenly-aging back has grown used to, he expects to see the bright white wood of his cabin on his ship.

Instead, the dark, bland colors of the jail cell at the police station remind him that he's in Storybrooke, not out on the open oceans of all the realms in the world. Staying put in his spot on the cot, both because he's somehow comfortable and not entirely sure his back would agree with moving so quickly, his arm draped behind his head, brace still strapped around his torso, the first time he's slept with it on for years. 

Of course, his attention is drawn to Emma, sitting behind her desk with one headphone in as she pretends to ignore him as best she can — but he knows better, continuing to catch her eyes as they flit away from him. But he maintains her silence, merely smiling at her when she walks over and hands him a cup of coffee. It's been years since he has been able to just stay on a cot, clearing his mind by pretending he can feel the waves churning under him once more.

This lasts for a good part of the morning, a comfortable silence maintained between them. 

Until, finally, she breaks, quickly tossing her pencil down onto her desk only to have it clatters to the. floor. 

“Why do you look so damned familiar, Mr. Jones?” she asks, her eyes growing wide as her words become louder. “It's impossible for me to have seen you before, but I can't shake the feeling I know you.” 

His heart  _ aches  _ for her, and he wants to do is tell her everything, even though he knows she won't believe him. Tell her how much he loves her, tell her about her daughter that she's forgotten about because of the Curse. But he knows he cannot. When the time is right, he knows the curse will be broken and Emma will regain her memories. 

But now is not that time. 

“I can assure you, darling,” he says, smiling through the bars at her. “I would never forget a face such as yours.” 

The words come so easily, the flirty banter that he has gone without for twelve years.

But here again, talking to his wife even though she has no idea that is who she is, he can’t help but flirt with her because he loves her so damn much.

He has questioned for years whether he would ever actually see her again, and having her before him once more, though he wishes he could break the curse, is enough to curb his heart for the time being. Or, at least, it would have to be.  

She waves him off, unaffected by him, and manages to ignore him for a few minutes more while she does some paperwork. 

But, finally, as she is filing his release papers,  she comes to a realization, the same realization David made the day before, and turns his eyes back up to Killian, who is watching her from the cot. 

“Your daughter, she’s blonde?” 

He waits for there to be more to the question, but when there is not, he agrees, simply nodding his head. 

“Like her mother, I presume?” 

Killian laughs, finding her engagement ring from under his shirt with the tips of his fingers, but his eyes never leave Emma's. 

“Aye, just like her mother, my wife.” 

“And she’s still alive?” 

At first, the question catches him off-guard, but once he realizes what she must mean, Killian can’t help but smile at the irony behind her question. 

“Yes, she is.” He's intrigued by this conversation, finally pulling himself to sit on the cot, even as his whole body fights back. “Why, did my little lass tell you otherwise?” 

“Well, no,” Emma says, then pulls her lower lip between her teeth before continuing. “She said that you and she had to leave your wife behind to stay safe from someone, but you’re trying to find her.” 

“Hope never really had a penchant for anything other than honesty,” he comments with a smile as he pushes himself up of the cot to walk closer to the bars of his cell, leaning up against them to get as close to Emma as he can. “If you don’t mind my asking, love, what’s with your curiosity?” 

She does not answer at first, tapping the end of her pen against her front teeth, which have pulled her bottom lip under them again. Her eyes are lowered to the desk, avoiding his for a moment, before they snap back up. 

When she starts to speak, her words come slowly. “I just figured that, given I have the resources, if you needed some help trying to find out where she is, I might be able to help you find some answers.” 

Killian stares at her for a moment, and though his eye color on his paperwork is exactly what started this conversation, this is the first time she has noticed just how startlingly blue they are.

In fact, they are almost the exact same shade of blue that she has only ever seen one other place: on her own son. She's not sure what to do with this realization, but it remains in the back of her mind as Killian's words surprise her almost as much.

“While I appreciate the offer, love, I know exactly where it is I can find my wife. It’s just a matter of it being the right time to do so.” 

She smiles at him, unsure of what his statement even means, but returns it, a sharp contrast to the seriousness of his voice. Unsure of how to respond to that, she turns her attention back to his paperwork, completing it in just a few minutes. 

Finally, she pushes herself away from her desk, smiling gently at him as she unlocks the door to the cell. “You're free to go, Mr. Jones.” She hands him his valuables, along with a piece of paper with an address and a phone number. “The address is where your daughter has been staying.” 

“And the number?” he asks, his eyes searching into the depths of her with a question that is so shallow.  

He breath hitches in her throat, fairly sure that she might never breathe again when his hand brushes hers as he takes the paper.

“That’s mine,” she says, pulling herself together enough to steady her voice. “If there’s anything I can do to help you, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

He smiles at her, perhaps the most genuine emotion he has shown since he drove his Subaru into Storybrooke, then thanks her before leaving the station. 

  
  


After Killian's time in the Storybrooke jail cell, the Jones finally seem to find their place in the town. Much to his surprise, Regina leaves them alone, only running into Killian and Hope in places that are normal for small-town life: the grocery store, the diner. 

Killian pays for another week at Granny's bed and breakfast. They spend a lot of time on the  _ Jolly _ , time on the water that Killian hasn't realized he missed as much as much as he apparently has. But nothing compares to the feeling on the sun on his skin, the salt in the air around him and the sound of the waves crashing against the wooden sides. 

He was made to be on the water, a realization that he learned very early in his life. And, though much of the time he was able to spend on the sea was dedicated to piracy because of the darkness of his early years, he was graced with the ability to spend much of his life — his unnaturally-long life — on the open ocean. 

And having his daughter beside him, just as excited to learn about the workings of the ship as Killian is to teach her, makes his ability to be on the sea again all the better. 

The only thing that could still add to is would be having the rest of his family with him. His wife. His  _ son. _

His son, who he has been able to get to know even before the people around him know the truth of his parentage, more than just him, Hope, and Killian. Because over the two weeks that they have spent in Storybrooke, Hope and Henry have become inseparable, fast friends who want to spend as much time together as they can. And Killian will never argue when Hope asks if they can see Henry. 

Because seeing Henry means seeing Emma, and even though she may not know the truth, may not know just how important she is to him, she still seems to be warming up to him. 

(And Killian has not missed the fact that Neal is almost never present, is never the person who comes with Henry for their play dates, their days at the park and at the movies and then, finally, hopefully today, on the water. 

“Please, mom?” Henry asks, turning his face back up to Emma, eyes wide with pleading. “Can we go out on Mr. Jones ship today?”

As much as Killian wants to join Henry's fight, wants to plead with Emma to let him come onto the  _ Joll _ y. It really is the perfect day, not a single cloud in the bright sky and the sun beating down, particularly strong for Maine. 

But when Emma turns to him, asking his opinion through her expression, he can't help but laugh. 

“It's a gorgeous day, and it will just be better out on the water.” 

She knits her eyebrows for a moment, but then he expression slowly fades to a smile. 

“You would say that every day, wouldn't you, Jones?”

He can't stop the smile that begins to take over his face, both in response to her question and to the perfect smile that Emma is flashing at him. 

“Of course I would, love. I was raised on the sea, I would choose to spend every day there if I could. But today really  _ is  _ the perfect day to go out on the water.” 

“Well, you are the expert, and I can't argue with that.” 

“Are you able to join us?” 

Emma's smile disappears, her eyes falling to the ground for a moment. “Sadly, no,” she says, then her eyes find his once more. “I have to go to the station. Would you be able to bring him to me when you're done?” 

The corner of Killian's lip curls into a flick of a smile, disappearing just as quickly as it appeared. “Of course.” 

“Thank you,” she says softly, her smile now slightly more genuine, and succeeding in eliciting one from Killian, lingering a moment too long before she turns on her heel and leaves him by the park. 

Every part of him wants to reexamine that conversation, wants to go through every look she gave him and decode him, but Henry, still standing beside him, is too excited to allow him to linger for another moment, something Killian is thankful for, saving him from the madness of his own mind. 

“Let's go!” 

Killian can't argue with that, finally able to take Henry out on the  _ Jolly _ . 

Hope is just as excited to have him there, especially when Killian asks her if she wants to help him show Henry the ropes (both literally and figuratively). Unsurprisingly, Henry is a natural, just like Hope was, and before too long, they are standing in front of the helm, looking out over the open water, while Hope sits down on the lower deck paging through the Storybook. 

Suddenly, Henry whips around to face him, his whole face painted with excitement, realizing for the first time that he can ask the question he's been wanting to ask Killian for two weeks now, but has never been able to with other people around. “Have you gotten to read the story book?” 

“Aye, I have, though I have quite a few questions about it.” 

“You know it's all true, though, right?”

Killian smiles down at the boy, the first person who believes his antics without question, because he knows that they are not antics. “Aye, lad, I was there for quite a lot of it. Pages of my life are illustrated in that book, which just makes it more mysterious to me. If you don't mind me asking, how did you come across it?” 

“I got it as a present for my birthday. I didn't open the gifts when people were there, but it didn't have anyone's name on it, so I don't know where it came from. It just… appeared there, I guess.” 

None of this makes sense. First Hope dreams about Emma, a face that it is impossible for her to remember, then Henry is  _ magically  _ given a book of stories from the Enchanted Forest and the other realms — stories that Regina has made sure no one will ever remember. Killian is still trying to put the pieces together in his mind when Henry speaks again. 

“Have you thought about how you're going to break the curse?” 

Killian lets out a breathy laugh. “That's the only thing I've been able to think about since I got here, if I'm honest with you, but I seem to have come up blank. I don't imagine you have any ideas, do you?” 

Henry's face lights up, finally able to spill all of the ideas that have taken over his mind since the story book revealed its secrets to him. “True loves kiss! It's how Prince Charming woke up Snow White, so it could be how you wake up everyone here.” Apparently, though, he sees no issue with this, an issue that Killian realizes immediately, having had the same thought before.

“There's only one problem with that, lad?” 

“What's that?” 

“Your mother is already married. What am I to do, assault her just to make her see the truth?” 

This does not seem to crush his hopes; instead, he just seems confused, his eyebrows knitted low on his forehead. “Married? My mom and Neal aren't married.” 

Now  _ this  _ is news to Killian. “They're not?” 

“No, he's never been interested I guess. She kept telling me that when the time is right, maybe, but I guess the time was never right.” He turns his eyes down to the deck of the ship, seemingly embarrassed by this fact. Though it changes the entire situation, Killian senses the change in Henry’s mood, so he changes the subject. 

“Well, that changes the whole plan. It might take some time, but I think we can come up with a plan of action, right?”

Henry smiles up at him, excitement returned back to his face. “You mean, like, a mission?”

“If you’d like to call it a mission, lad, then that’s what we can do.”

“But what should we call the mission? Every good mission has a cool name.”

Killian can’t help but laugh at the boy, at his excitement and dedication to getting his family back together. “Do you have any ideas?”

The expression that covers Henry’s face makes Killian believe he’s been waiting to be asked his question for weeks, and when he bursts out with, “Operation Cobra!”, Killian knows he neither desires nor intends to argue with him.


	8. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys are all the absolute greatest, and I'm thankful for each and every one of you. There will be another chapter by the end of the week :)

With Hope napping on the deck of the ship, a blanket Killian found in the captain’s cabin draped over her back, and Henry sitting not far from her with the story book perched in his lap, Killian does not realize that he’s lost track of time. Looking out over the open water, his back to the dock still visible on the horizon, the realization hits Killian all within a moment, all at once remembering that he was supposed to meet Emma at the station after just a few hours, and they have spent most of the day on the water. 

Henry does not even realize that Killian has taken them back to the dock until he is about to weigh anchor, looking up suddenly from the story book as the chain begins to creak.

“Do I really have to go home?” he asks, his voice barely loud enough for Killian to hear with the old parts of the ship creaking all around him, but though he barely registers his words, he does not fail to miss the sadness dripping from his voice. 

“I told your mother I would take you back to the station before the end of her shift, and I am hoping we can still get there in time.” 

“But why can’t I stay here? With you?”

“You need to go home to your parents, Henry,” Killian says softly, resting his arm on the boy’s shoulder. 

The smile that grows across Henry’s face is so familiar to Killian that he feels like a dagger has stabbed into his heart. He’s sure it’s the same smile that covers his face when he is about to make a joke, about to say something he’s not sure he should  _ really  _ say but is going to anyway; but that’s not where he recognizes it from. No, instead, the smile that covers his son’s face is the mirror image of the very few times Liam Jones did something devilish, made a joke on Killian’s behalf or said something just on the edge of appropriate. It did not happen many times, and it has been quite a few regular lifetimes since Killian saw this expression on the face of his brother — a face that he sometimes fears is approaching the furthest edges of his memories that he will soon disappear. 

But seeing the expression of his brother so clearly in Henry is the light he needed in his life right now. 

“But you’re my parent.”

Killian kneels down on the deck to be face-to-face with the boy in front of him, clasping his hand harder against his small shoulder. “I promise you, Henry, that I will not stop until this curse is broken. I have never wanted anything else more in the hundreds of years of my life than I want to have your mother realize the truth and have our family back together. I would sooner give my life than be content with Emma believing the unhappy life she lives now is the truth.”

“Okay,” he says softly, his eyes falling to the deck of the ship. “Operation Cobra is a go, then?” 

“Of course, lad. We’re a go.”

 

Much to Killian’s relief, Emma is sitting at her desk when Henry leads them into the police station, one headphone in her ear as they walk into the room, and she turns to them just as Henry begins to rush towards her. 

“Mom, mom, I had the greatest day on Killian’s ship!” Henry yells, wrapping his arms around Emma’s waist, and she smiles down at him before raising her eyes to find Killian’s for just a moment. 

“I’m glad you enjoyed it, kid,” she says. “Did you learn a lot?”

“Hope and Killian taught me everything! I can’t wait until it’s nice enough again and you can come with us!”

“Is that so?” she asks, raising her eyes to Killian’s once more, but keeping them there this time, the raising of her eyebrows telling him that she is really asking his thoughts on the subject.

Twelve years later, and he can still recognize her facial expressions. 

“Of course, love,” he says, smiling softly at her across the room. “I would love to take you out.” 

It seems she realizes what he says before he does, the edges of her cheeks beginning to turn a deep shade of red. Thankfully, Hope breaks the moment by pulling on the hem of Killian’s shirt. “Daddy, I’m hungry,” she says softly, then leans into his side. 

“Can we all go to dinner together?” Henry asks, perhaps a little too excitedly, and Emma’s eyes go wide, turning back towards Killian. 

“Hope and I have no plans, and that seems to be where we always end up anyway,” he says, trying to hide the excitement in his voice with a shrug, but he still smiles at her. 

She pauses for a moment, turning around to look at the time on the screen of her computer, and then she shrugs. “As long as you don’t mind waiting three minutes for Graham to get here, then I don’t see why not?”

 

Granny smiles at them as Killian brings up the rear of their group into the restaurant, a knowing smile that only a lovely little old lady could pull off.

“Corner booth’s open,” she says, just as Emma comes to the same realization, and Killian returns her smile. 

“Thank you,” he says, then slides into the booth beside Hope while Emma and Henry sit across from them. 

They all take a few moments to look over the menu, though it is unnecessary for any of them. Emma and Henry practically live here, not to mention the fact that they almost always get the same thing; and Killian and Hope have frequented enough in the past two weeks that they have favorites. But once the menus are piled in the middle of the table, the silence becomes both unnecessary and thick. 

But, the one that breaks the silence is not any of the four sitting at the table; no, instead, it’s a Storybrooke resident that enters Granny’s — a Storybrooke resident that Killian hasn’t seen since before… before he married Emma, if he’s honest with himself. 

“Henry!” the man's little girl says excitedly, passing her father to rush towards their corner booth. “I’m having a birthday party next weekend and I was wondering if you’d want to come?”

Much to Emma’s surprise, Henry does not answer right away, instead turning towards Hope across the table from him. 

“Grace, this is Hope, she’s my new friend. She’s new to Storybrooke, but as long as I can bring her with, then I would love to come to your party!”

Grace’s eyes grow wide, excited by the news of a new friend in this tiny town, especially another girl. “Of course you can bring her, Henry!” she says, smiling across the table at Hope, who is leaning closer to her father, unsure of how to react. 

But Hope is not the only one on edge. Killian, who had gone years since seeing the Storybrooke resident before him, feels the same way. 

But, much to his relief, the man before him says nothing about the look of familiarity in his eyes that tells Killian he recognizes him.

And instead of acting on it, he stays silent. 

“Of course,” Grace says excitedly, smiling at Henry across the table. “Of course you can bring her along with you!” 

“Thank you, Grace!” he says, returning her smile. “We’ll both see you there, then.”

Grace reaches her small arm out and takes Hope’s hand in her own. “It’s very nice to meet you,” she says cordially, then hands her the invitation out of her pocket that was meant for Henry. “And I can’t wait to see you at my party.”

As Grace’s father leads her away from the table, Killian comes to a conclusion: given the recognition in his eyes when he saw Killian, he has decided he is going to visit his old friend at some point this week. If he recognized Killian, then Killian things it's safe to say that he’s not cursed. And, perhaps more than anything else, this gives him hope. 

 

By the time they are done with dinner, the sky has grown dark, the stars hanging above Maine’s dark sky, the perfect night to look at the constellations. 

Hope knows so, too.

“Daddy, can we go out onto the ship and look at the stars?” she asks, leaning against his side, her small arm wrapped around him, and he sets his hand on her shoulder. 

“Of course we can, starfish,” he says, smiling above Hope and Henry’s heads, somehow finding Emma’s eyes in the dark Maine moonlight. 

He begins to say good night to Emma and Henry Swan, but something between the stars lighting up the sky above them and the fierceness of Emma's bright green eyes reflecting the lights from the diner leads him otherwise. 

“Would you like to join us?” 

When he watches her smile grow, he cannot keep himself from doing the same. Emma turns down to Henry, asking what he wants to do with a shrug, and he nods excitedly, wrapping his arms around her waist in a tight hug. 

“Oh, mom, please! Killian told me that he would teach me the constellations!” 

Killian hears Hope gasp from beside him, and when he turns down to her, she is smiling up at Emma, just as radiant in the streetlights as her mother. 

“Does that mean I can teach Emma?” 

When Emma leans down and rests her hand against Hope’s shoulder, Killian feels the weight of his heart fall to the ground in front of him, and the matching smiles on the girl’s faces just makes it worse. But when Emma softly replies, “I bet you’re a better teacher than your daddy,” in the same tone that she would speak to Hope before she was born, his breath catches in his throat and his chest tightens. 

He’s spent every day for the past twelve years constantly faced with the fact that his daughter was a mirror image of the wife that he couldn’t be with, but it is here, in this moment, that he is finally able to see it for the first time, just how much his little girl’s smile mirrors that exactly of her mother. 

 

Hope, it turns out, is an excellent teacher. Sure, he would ask her to find the patterns in the stars from the roof of their apartment or when they were able to talk one of the harbor workers in the city to let them go out at night, but he had never seen her this excited.

He is standing at the helm with Henry, drawing out the lines of the lion constellation in the sky over their heads, but as Henry points to the spots in the sky with his arm extended over his head, Killian turns his attention instead to the voice of his daughter being carried on the wind. 

“And that star right there, this big, bright one? That’s the middle of the Swan in the sky, or the Cygnet, as my daddy calls it. He says it’s the first one I ever remembered on my own, and that’s why he calls me his cygnet. It means “little Swan”.”

In this moment, he realizes this is what his life would have been like had the curse never happened, what his life was supposed to be like. He and Emma and their children, spending days sailing and nights learning how to navigate using the stars in all the realms, the same way Liam taught him all those years ago, back when he was literally a different person. 

He  _ needs  _ to have his family back. His whole family. They’ve been incomplete for what feels like a lifetime, which is a lot for a man who has lived dozens of lifetimes — the lifetime of their daughter, who was just a few months old when they had to leave her behind. 

More than the  _ entire  _ lifetime of his son. 

If only he had some sort of idea about how to break the curse. 


	9. Chapter Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This chapter includes mentions of death during childbirth, alcoholism, and verbal abuse. Tread carefully. This is where everything really starts to get complicated, and if you have any questions for me about the warnings/ferocity of what happens, come find me on tumblr: thejollyroger-writer. Come find me anyway and yell at me. I promise it will get better, but not before it gets worse.

When Mary Margaret and David offer to take Hope with the group of children she watches to see a movie, Killian hates how relieved he is. A few days have passed since his nights in jail, and every time he sees Emma or Henry — or, if he’s being honest with himself, every time he thinks about her, which is much more often than he’d allowed himself to for years — he longs for a way to break the curse even more.

Which is how he ends up here, in front of Jefferson’s door, following his GPS to the address on Grace’s party invitation. He’s not sure what he’s hoping to get from this conversation, but he does know for a fact that when they saw each other in the diner, there was recognition in the eyes of his old friend, something that he had not seen in anyone for the longest time.

But he certainly does _not_ expect the man to reach out to grab his coat and quickly pull him through the door, peering both ways down the street before quickly closing his front door once more.

For a moment, Killian stands before him and all he sees in his eyes is _madness_ , wide with surprise as they stare unblinking at him, running from his head to his toes and back.

When he meets the man’s eyes once more, his surprise melts off his face, turning to a smile, spread widely across his face, staring at him before pulling him in for a hug. After the moment it takes Killian to react, he is returning the gesture.

“I was starting to think you would never make it.”

A wave of relief washes over Killian, tightening his arms around his old friend. He was right, and Jefferson does have his memories, or at least remembers who he is. And by the sound of it, also knows what Killian is here to do.

“I had to wait for the right time,” Killian says, releasing him from the hug, and Jefferson begins to lead them to the kitchen. “It seems you already know why I'm here, but what are you doing here? You weren't in the Enchanted Forest when the curse was cast, were you?”

He gestures to one of the stools at the counter in his kitchen, quickly igniting the burner that his tea kettle sits on before turning back towards Killian, leaning on the opposite side of the counter.

“News of the Evil Queen’s attempt at curses always reached Wonderland, and of course the fact that your wife and her family would stop them before she could cast. But a few years after the last time you came to Wonderland, I met a woman, and we — well, we fell in love. She must have been pregnant around the same time as the Princess, but medicine in my realm was not as up to date as it was in the Enchanted Forest, and nowhere what we have here, and she didn’t make it, but our daughter did.” He stops for the first time since he started his story, raising his eyes up from the countertop between them to find Killian’s as he runs his fingers through his hair, leaving it wildly standing up in all directions. “There was nothing left for us there, Killian. So when I heard the curse was cast and created a new town in this realm, a town where the inhabitants lost their memories, I packed Grace up and brought her here for a new life. Here, she could be safe and happy and I wouldn’t be constantly reminded of how I could do nothing to save my wife, and thankfully, we arrived soon enough that it did not illicit intrigue.”

Unsure even of what to say, Killian sits silently across from him, his eyes never leaving him even as he begins to pace back and forth in the space between the counter and the stove. Jefferson’s story gives a whole new point of view for his own. Sure, he lost Emma, but certainly not in the way that Jefferson lost his own wife. Killian has the ability to get his love back, to have his family back together, something that Jefferson will never be able to do.

Sometimes he was unsure of how to handle his own grief. He can hardly imagine how Jefferson must feel.

After a few moments of silence pass between them, the tea kettle on the stove just begins to whistle, and it is when Jefferson turns back towards the stove, pulling two mugs off their hooks under the cabinet and filling them with water, that Killian feels comfortable enough to speak again.

“How did you know to expect me? I wasn't even married the last time I saw you, so you couldn't have known that my daughter is the one to break the curse, since the only person with that knowledge here is Regina?”

Jefferson sets the mugs down between them, pulling a large box full of organized compartments of tea bags from the shelf above him as he replies. “News of your marriage flew through the realms. Everyone everywhere knew about the feud between your wife's family and the Evil Queen. When I got here and noticed that you were not present even though I knew you made your life in Misthaven, I knew that you and your little girl must have gotten away before the curse was cast.”

“What about Regina? Hasn’t she questioned why you’re here when you weren’t in the Enchanted Forest when the curse was cast?”

Jefferson shrugs, procuring a tea bag out of the box before removing it from the packet and begins to duck it into the steaming water. “I’ve given her no reason to expect I wasn’t supposed to be here, nothing to lead her to believe I know the truth.”

Killian mimics him, sifting through the options the fill the box before choosing one for himself, silence between them as he begins steeping his.

“So then, in the twelve years you’ve been here, taking everything in, learning how it all works, do you have any ideas on how to break this curse?”

Leaving his mug at the counter, Jefferson walks past Killian into the living room, pulling a large volume off one of the bookshelves there before turning back to him to hand it over. It looks similar to the one Henry had shown him before, and as Killian begins to page through it, he realizes it tells many of the same stories.

“According to all the research, all the books I’ve been able to find, the only way to break a curse as strong as this one is with true love's kiss, but given Emma is with Rumplestiltskin’s son and you’ve told her that you’re married and looking for your long-lost wife, I’m not too sure that you can pull that one off.”

He finds a page in Jefferson’s version that he failed to find in Henry’s, a page depicting the _Jolly Roger_ off the shores of Wonderland, he and Jefferson leading a discussion between Killian’s crew and inhabitants of the realm about what they were going to do in response to their own queen’s threats against them. On the other side of the page is another picture Killian had not seen before, this one of Jefferson and a woman with long, blonde curls in the middle of a wedding ceremony.

There may be a few problems that he needs to take care of before he is really able to formulate a plan, but Killian won’t let that stop him. As he looks down at the picture of Jefferson and his wife, a wife that he will never be reunited with, he’s never been more sure that he is going to get his family back.

 

He spends most of the afternoon with the man he hadn’t seen in years, recalling stories from their times in other realms before the curse and in this one since it. But time passes quickly, and before what feels like no time at all, two hours have passed, and Killian should get going before Grace needs to be dropped off, in order to keep suspicion from arousing about their acquaintance.

So after both exchanging information and bidding his friend goodbye once more, he walks from Jefferson’s back to the docks, his mind fully focused on the beginnings of a plan that they formulated.

So fully focused, in fact, that he does not immediately realize that someone is sitting at one of the tables on the beach as he approaches it. He hears her before he sees her, the soft wind pushing the sound towards him as he walks towards the docks, a sound that he would recognize anywhere even though he hadn’t heard it in years. Crying, the very same cry that he had soothed more times than he could count.

Emma.

As he approaches, he realizes that she is facing the open water, her headphones hanging out of her ears and her knees pulled up to her chest with her arms wrapped around them, both facing away from him and unable to hear him. Between her music and the lapping of the waves on the shore, she does not realize he approaches even though he tries to call out to her as he makes his way down the beach.

By the time she does realize it, however, he is just a few feet away from her, and though she tries to hide her disheveled appearance, tries to cover the tear-stains on her cheeks, it does not work. Even if Killian could not recognize every motion of her body language, she would not have been able to hide her distress from him.

Before he even tries to say anything, she starts with, “I — I’m sorry.” She takes a deep breath, wipes her cheeks once more, but it is to no avail. “This has always been the spot where I come to think, and there’s never been anyone else down here for as long as I can remember.”

“You come down to the water to clear your head?” he asks, knowing that she did the same thing in the Enchanted Forest. It was something she started doing when he started coming around, finding her peace and her hope waiting for him by the water.  

“I know that sounds insane, but—”

The very corner of his mouth pulls up into a smile without him being able to stop it. “I can assure you, love, it’s the farthest thing from insane that I’ve heard in years.”

He sits on the bench of the same table, but on the opposite end, staying silent for a while, simply listening to the waves. Though he has been so separated from her for years, this is the farthest away he has felt, knowing that she is within arm’s reach but unable to act on it. That she is hurting, that he can help soothe her, but he cannot.

Finally, she speaks up. “Aren’t you going to ask me what happened?”

He turns to her, surprised to hear her speak again. “I figured it was nowhere close to my place to ask, love, but if you desire to tell me, rest assured that I will be here to listen.”

She doesn’t respond at first, but he watches as the dam of her emotions break before his very eyes when she does, the words come quickly. “It just happened all of the sudden. Henry turned eleven, and it was like someone flipped a switch in Neal. I knew… I always knew that he wasn’t interested in marriage, and I figured after this long together, nothing he did would surprise me. I know that he’s emotional and that he can get angry easily sometimes, but I never thought…” She stops finally, taking a breath so deep he watches the rise and fall of her shoulders, then pushes the flyaways of her ponytail down against her head before wrapping her hard around her fingers. “And then he just started screaming at me, the night after Henry’s birthday party. That was just a few weeks ago, and he hadn’t done it since, not until today. He was in hysterics, drunk again, and just screaming at me, about how he knows I don't love him anymore but how he would never be able to live without me, without Henry. The worst part is, this time it didn’t even surprise me, you know? I didn’t even say anything to him, I just… I just left. I just walked out of the house, and the next thing I knew, I was here.”

She may have been crying when he approached her, but she holds herself together through all of this, her voice almost completely emotionless, which somehow hurts him more. He’s livid, and he is about to ask Emma if there is anything he can do to help her when a car pulls up behind them.

Neal’s car.

He flies out of the driver’s seat, his words already flying before he even gets out, but he just gets more angry when he sees Killian there, completely going off the rails.

And, to make matters worse, he’s absolutely raging drunk.

“Killian, you don’t have to stay for this,” she tries, reaching her hand out and grabbing him below the elbow, just at the bottom of his prosthetic, but he won’t hear it.

“Call whoever’s at the station. Tell them to come help you, tell them that Neal’s drunk and you’re scared. I’ll hold him off until they get here.”

Even through her quivering lip, Emma smiles at him, then does exactly that.

Making sure Emma stays behind him, Killian quickly covers the distance between himself and Neal, trying his hardest to keep as much distance between Neal and Emma as he can.

“So it's you, isn't it, pretty boy?” he yells, pointing his finger in Killian's face. His first reaction is to take the finger in his hand and use it as leverage to break the rest of his hand, a trick Liam taught him when they were just boys, but the fact that he restrains himself surprises even him. Besides, it would involve getting close enough to touch him, and Killian's not sure how much restraint he would have if that happened.  “You're the one that thinks you're so much fucking better than I am? The one that _thinks_ she loves you anywhere near as much as she loves me?”

"I have no idea what you're talking about, mate," Killian responds, pushing the words out slowly between his clenched teeth.

"I knew that there had to be someone else, that she would never just stop loving me so suddenly!" 

“Neal, what the fuck are you even talking about?” Emma asks, coming up behind Killian but stopping a few feet away from them.

“He's the one that's trying to take you away from me! The one that you've been seeing, that's been manipulating you to leave me, to leave _our son_ behind!”

His blood must have just been simmering before, because these words cause it to boil. Using Henry against her like that, when he's not even Neal's son in the first place.

Using _his_ son to hurt _his_ wife, and seemingly not for the first time.

No wonder the curse needed to be broken.

“Oi, mate!” Killian yells, pulling Neal's attention back towards him. “Maybe if you didn't treat her like this, she would bloody love you in the first place.”

Unsurprisingly, Neal does not like this argument, so he raises his hand between them, then smacks the side of Killian's face with his plan.

Killian is unphased, taking half a step closer to him, wordlessly challenging him to do it again.

“Can't even hit me like a bloody man,” Killian mumbles, rage blowing his eyes wide as he looks down at Neal, towering over him on his own but currently with the added boost of the uneven sand.

Instead of trying again, Neal pulls the corners of his lips up into a sinister smile, leaning closer still to his face so he can whisper, “You'll never get her back, Hook,” before hitting him again, his hand hitting closer to the edge of Killian's jaw this time.

This completely catches him off guard, moreso his words than his palm making contact with his face, and Neal thinks he has the advantage, squeezing his hand into a fist. But before it can make contact with Killian's jaw, Killian has taken his wrist in his hand, using it as leverage to force his body to the ground, first to his knees and then further still when Killian pushes him further into the sand with his knee pressed against his back.

Another trick he learned from Liam, may he rest in peace.

“I'm sorry!” Neal says after a moment, trying to keep the sand out of his mouth, and Killian can't tell whether he is being sincere or not. “Please, Emma, please, I — I'm so sorry.”

Killian turns to Emma, who has remained unmoving since she approached him, the only thing changed being her facial expression.

When Neal showed up, when Killian was trying to protect her from him, she was angry, upset, and even a little embarrassed. But now, all he sees on her face is fear.

“I just,” she says softly, then pulls her bottom lip up between her teeth for a moment before continuing, “I can't do this right now.”

And she is gone, rushing across the beach and into Neal's car, which he left running. As she pulls away, Graham pulls up in the police cruiser.

Killian doesn't fail to notice that Graham does not look surprised at the scene he finds on the beach, but even as he cuffs Neal and slides him into the back of the car, all Killian can think about was that last look on her face, a look of pure terror. He wishes he knew what he could do to make her feel better, wishes he knew what exactly her fear was so he could help dispel it.

But when he watches the tail lights of the cruiser pull away around the corner, he realizes that, if he is going to break the curse, it is going to hurt her quite a lot more before he can make it better. Because now, the easiest way to get Emma to see him in the light he needs her to, it means she is going to have to leave Neal before he even thinks about breaking the curse, if even just for her safety.

And given what he's learned about him over the past few days, the least of which being he knows who he is, why he is here, he can imagine it's not going to be an easy feat.

 

He half-expects Emma to be there when he drives to the Nolan's to pick up Hope, but there is no sign of her. With Mary Margaret in the living room with the kids who are still waiting to get picked up, Killian and David are alone in the kitchen, an opportunity he uses to his advantage.

“You haven't heard from Emma lately, have you?’ he asks as nonchalantly as he can, but David still narrows his eyes across the table at him.

“No, I haven't. Why, has something happened?”

He recognizes this technique immediately, trying to lead him on to get him to give out information, but there is no way it's going to work.

Killian imagines that David must have heard about what happened on the beach with Neal, given he is the sheriff, but if he's not the person Emma comes running to, then it is not his place to give away her secrets. She trusted him with her story, bared her heart to her in a way that means more to him than she could possibly imagine, and earning that trust is the most important thing that has happened since he came to Storybrooke, and he was going to guard it with his life.

“I heard a little altercation between her and Neal from my ship this morning, and I know he was taken to the station. I just wanted to make sure she was alright.”

Killian can tell that David does not quite fall for his ploy, but Hope saves the day anyway, walking into the kitchen with Henry surprisingly not close behind her, trying and failing to suppress a yawn.

“Daddy, can we go home?” Walking up beside him, she burrows into his shoulder, and he wraps his arm around her, planting a soft kiss to the top of her head before smiling across the table at David.

“It looks like you wore out my daughter, David, and for that I thank you.”

He stands, Hope still clinging to him, just as Mary Margaret comes into the kitchen.

“Oh, Killian, I was hoping you'd be able to stay for dinner with us and Henry? It was supposed to be Emma and Neal, but she's not answering her phone.”

As if on queue, Hope yawns again, this time using Killian's hip to try to hide it — and, once again, failing.

“I must apologize, love,” Killian replies, smiling across the room at Mary Margaret while he begins to rub Hopes shoulder. “It seems my daughter has had a rather exciting day with you, and desires to return home. Another day, though, I promise you.” He nods at David before turning out of the room, Hope still tethered to him.

When he closes the door behind them, a beat passes between David and Mary Margaret before David turns around from his seat at the table, a smile working it's way across his face.

“I can’t say for sure, really, but there is just something about him that I really like.”  


	10. Chapter Nine

Emma doesn’t know what to do. Sitting in the front seat of Neal’s car, she watches as Graham helps Neal into the back of the police cruiser, resting her forehead against the steering wheel. 

When did everything fall apart? For years, everything was fine. She was happy, with her little family. Her and Henry and Neal. She was happy. Henry was happy. 

But, sitting in the driver’s seat of Neal’s car as he is arrested for a drunk and disorderly, she finds herself wondering about him. Was Neal ever happy? In all the years she’s known him, has he ever _truly_ seemed happy? She leans back, slamming her head into the back of the seat and gripping the steering wheel until her knuckles go white, trying to find one happy memory between her and Neal. Why has she gone this long, believing she is happy, when there is no evidence to back it up? 

She raises her eyes, needing to think about something other than the chaos that her life has become, but what she finds does not make it any better. Or, better, it  _ does  _ make it better, and that somehow makes it worse. 

Because there stands Killian, a few feet away from Graham, who is now climbing behind the wheel of the police cruiser. Killian, who has somehow been there for her more in the past week than anyone has been her entire life. Killian, who she feels she knows better than anyone, even though that’s entirely impossible, never having met him before just a week before. 

Killian, who she has too many feelings around to deal with right now. 

So she shifts the car into drive and leaves the dock behind, fighting against herself from looking into the rear view mirror. 

_ What the hell happened?  _

She tries to think back. She was fourteen when she came to Storybrooke, having run away from her last foster family, the Swans. And before that, there was the… she can’t remember anything beyond that. Is that normal? She certainly hopes not. If that were normal, then her son would remember nothing about this point in his life by the time he reached her age. 

She was fifteen when she met Neal, being in town for just a few months when the Nolans insisted she finished her schooling while she was here. They had a class together. History? No, English. 

It couldn’t have been English. She was always ahead of him in English. 

It must have been math. With… 

Now that she’s thinking about it, she can’t remember any of her teachers in school. She doesn’t remember graduating. Why didn’t she go to college?

Shouldn’t she have gone to college? 

Without paying attention to where it was she was going, Emma turns her attention to her surroundings to realize that her conscience has brought her back home, the home she has built with Neal and Henry. Even though she knows that neither of them are there, Henry with David and Mary Margaret and Neal on his way to jail. 

But when her mind takes her to the next location — the station — she decides it’s the best place for her to be. She can lock herself in David’s office and bury herself in a few hours’ worth of paperwork to clear her mind. 

Or, at least, that’s what she tells herself. But when she actually gets there, having asked Graham to make sure the blinds were closed so she could get in without Neal's noticing, but once she gets there, she realizes that all she can think about is Neal. 

She knows that there has to be a good memory somewhere back there, a thought that she absolutely should not be caught up on, but that she finds herself focused on nonetheless. Why else would she have spent so long with a man that never made her happy? A man that, no matter how hard she tries, she cannot find one memory of a time when he was happy? 

Why does she have a son with a man that she obviously does not love? 

That thought sends a shiver down her spine, a shiver accompanied with another thought: she can’t think of the last time Neal was affectionate towards her. Sure, they shared kisses on days they actually saw each other, but beyond that? She can’t even think of the last time Neal told her that he loved her when he wasn’t trying to make up for something idiotic he had done. 

And this thought, somehow, leads her to another face, a set of bright blue eyes that she has not failed to notice are consistently full of affection for her. 

But she can’t go there right now. 

Still. 

Again. 

She keeps trying to find something to do — paperwork just won’t cut it, so she tries turning on some music and reorganizing the file cabinet, something David has been asking her to do for a few months. 

Thankfully, this works. Not only does it work, in fact, but it takes a few hours, and when she looks up at the clock over his desk, it’s almost six o’clock. 

_ Shit _ . She was supposed to have dinner with David and Mary Margaret an hour ago. Why did no one call her?  Looking at her phone to confirm, she finds this to be true. Not a single call from David or Mary Margaret, which is out of character for both of them. 

In fact, she only has two notifications, two back-to-back text messages from Killian, and one from Graham: 

**Graham** :  _ Come talk to me before you leave _

**Killian** :  _ If you need anything, let me know.  _

**Killian** :  _ Please.  _

It’s too much for her. All of this is too much for her, she realizes, and she was supposed to leave an hour ago anyway. But, to satisfy her curiosity, she peeks through the blinds, wondering what Graham needs from her, and why he couldn’t have just come in himself and talked to her. 

And then she thinks about it, realizing that if he were in her place, she would not want to bother him, either. 

But, peeking out into the rest of the station, something is off. Something is missing, and though she doesn’t realize it right away, when she does, she feels her chest tighten:  _ Neal.  _

Neal is missing. Gone. No longer in the cell. 

“Graham, what’s happened?” she asks, closing the door to David’s office behind her. 

When he turns to her, he looks startled, as if he forgot she was in the office. After the moment he needs to compose himself, he takes a deep breath, then starts. “Regina came in about two hours ago, in a rage. To be honest, I’m surprised you didn’t hear her. She insisted that we needed to let him go, that we had nothing to hold him on, and there was nothing I could do, I had to release him.” 

Emma’s head falls, her chin resting on her chest for a moment as she squeezes her eyes closed, taking a deep breath. 

“Thanks, Graham,” she says finally, already trying to decide what that means for her. 

All she knows is that she has no idea. 

 

Going to David and Mary Margaret’s does not help, especially when she walks in to find that her son has already been picked up. 

Once she fills David in on the whole story, stopping him from fuming with anger when he asks why she waited this long to tell him everything. Because, if she’s being honest with herself, she has no idea why she didn’t call him, has no idea why it never even crossed her mind. 

“If Killian was there, why didn’t he tell me when he came to pick up Hope?” 

“I can’t speak for Killian’s actions, David,” she groans, running her fingers through her hair as she tries to keep herself from breaking down. 

“That does explain some things, though,” David says after a moment, his voice much softer. 

“What does that mean?” 

“Well, he seemed upset when he picked up Henry. Angry about something." He shrugs. "You know, more so than usual.” 

For some reason, this statement makes Emma wince — _why is this a regularity in her life?_

“And then he said something to me, about not knowing how much longer the two of you would be together?”

Emma sits down at the table, if only to be able to set her head in her hands. “I don’t know when this started, David. But I do — I think it’s almost over.”

She tries her hardest not to continue to think about it on her way home, so she does the only thing she can think to do: she turns up the radio, focusing instead on the lyrics of the songs to try to keep her mind away from anything that’s happened over the past few days. When she pulls into the driveway, she discovers that her hands have started shaking somewhere between the Nolan’s and here. She’s not sure what to think, what to expect, so after she wipes her hands on her jeans and downs half of the water bottle rolling around her backseat, she makes her way to the door. 

At first, she doesn’t hear anything, which is almost more terrifying than anything she was expecting. And then, she starts to hear it, the soft bass of the music coming from Neal’s office on the other side of the house, the croon of Mick Jagger's voice that has come to sound like nails on the chalkboard to her. 

The _Stones_ coming from Neal’s office can only mean one of two things: he’s working, or he’s drinking. And she would bet everything she owned that it’s one over the other. 

She knows that she will have to talk to him at some point, face him head on — but she also knows that the last thing she is doing tonight, or for as long as she can make work, is sleeping in the same bed as him. 

And she is going to take her son with her. 

So, as quietly as she can, she makes her way up to Henry’s room, where he is sitting at the foot of his bed playing one of his video games. When he hears her come in, he quickly pauses it before turning towards the door. There are red rings around his eyes, plus the tip of his nose, and when he realizes that it’s her, his eyes widen, his expression turning to one of excitement. 

“Mom!” he says, jumping up from the floor to rush over to her and wrap his arms around her waist. 

“Hey, kid,” she says, squeezing him back. 

They stand like that for a moment, simply thankful that the other is there, but then Emma pulls back, resting her hands on his shoulders. 

“Can you tell me about what happened today?” 

He takes a deep breath, briefly closing his eyes as she sits down on the edge of his bed, and he follows. 

“When he came to pick me up from the Nolan’s, he was yelling. He kept saying things about how he was going to lose you soon, how he knew that there was someone else you wanted to be with and it was going to tear our family apart. That you don’t care about us anymore.”

Emma wants to cut in, make sure that Henry knows that none of it is true, but she stops herself. He needs a chance to speak for himself, without being stopped by anyone. His day has been rough enough. 

“And then we got in the car, and he was still yelling. I knew he wasn’t yelling at me, but it felt like he was. Yelling about how you don’t love us anymore, how you just want to leave and leave us here. I knew all of it was wrong, that you would never do that, but it still upset me. And then, when we got home, he went right into his office without saying anything else.”

Once his words stop coming, Emma reaches out to pull him into her arms again. 

“I would never leave you with him,” she says, rubbing circles on his back. 

“I know, mom.”

When she realizes that she is crying, she knows the time has come to confront Neal. Backing away from Henry, she attempts to smile down at him. “Pack your pajamas and a few changes of clothes, plus whatever else you’ll need for a few days” 

“Where are we going to go?” 

Reaching up to wipe the tears off her cheeks, she shakes her head. “I’m not sure yet, but we’re not staying here.”

Henry nods, already reaching down to pull his duffel bag out from under his bed. If Emma was paying more attention, not tied up by the knots of thoughts in her head, she would have asked him about the storybook that came out with it, but it never crosses her mind. 

As quickly as she can, she does the same thing in her own bedroom, terrified that Neal would hear her through the floor and come up to confront her. But as she stuffs a few changes of clothes, her phone charger, and some toiletries into her worn grey backpack, she hears nothing. 

Making her way to his office, she knocks softly on the door before letting herself in, knowing full well that he did not hear her. 

“Neal?” she asks, trying her keep her voice as even as she can. 

But when she steps through the door, she sees him sitting there in his desk chair, his arms crossed over his chest. In front of him sits a half-empty bottle of Johnny Walker. 

“What do you want?” he asks, his words half-slurred as he reaches under his desk to turn down the music. 

“I just want to talk to you. I wanted to apologize for what happened today, for whatever I’ve done that’s angered you.”

She expects some kind of response, but she gets none. All he does is sit there, arms folded over his chest as he stares up at her, unmoving. 

“And to let you know that I’m going to stay somewhere else for the next few days. You and I have some problems we need to work out, but I think we need to take some time for ourselves before we can do that.”

He still says nothing. 

She watches as his nostrils flare, his emotionless face suddenly covered with rage, but his eyes aren’t set on her anymore. Instead, they’ve moved to the doorway behind her. The only explanation is that Henry walked past the doorway with his duffel bag and he saw it. 

“And you’re going to take my son away from me?” he asks finally, his voice much smaller than she expected. 

“I don’t think he should stay here with you, no.” 

Suddenly, he pushes himself to his feet, his chair flying backwards fast enough to knock a few books down on the shelf behind him when it comes in contact with it. Emma takes a step back. 

She expects his voice to to loud, to carry through the whole house the way it tended to do when he got angry, but instead, the words come out through clenched teeth, almost too soft for her to hear over the music. “You better find a good place to stay, because there’s no way in hell I’m just letting you and my son walk out of my life.”

But that’s exactly what she does. Turning on her heel, she hitches the backpack further up onto her shoulder, trying her hardest to keep her back straight, to not slouch. Thankfully, Henry is waiting for her by the front door, everything he needs packed in the duffel bag slung over his shoulder. Both of them stay silent as they pack into the car, but once Emma has backed out of the driveway and is on the road, Henry finally turns to her. 

“Mom, where are we going to go?” 

Pulling her bottom lip up between her teeth, she shakes her head. She really has no idea. 


	11. Chapter Ten

Killian wakes with the sun, both he and the bed groaning as his back fights with the movement. The bed at Granny’s, somehow, was one of the more comfortable of his life, but that didn’t say much after the lifetimes he’s spent on hammocks, cots, and hay bales — but somehow, it still managed to stiffen his back enough to make him feel the old age that is catching up to him, much to his dismay. 

Without waking Hope, Killian pulls a fresh change of clothes out of his half-packed duffel bag and heads for the shower, letting the hot water wash the aching out of his bones. He tries his hardest to keep his mind off the events of the day before, of the anger that seethes through him every time he thinks about Neal and the way he has been treating his wife. 

Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t work. Every time he closes his eyes, he sees her. Sitting at that picnic table, trying her hide her tears from him; watching in fear as he confronted Neal so she did not have to. 

The anguish on her face as Graham led him into the back of the police cruiser. 

All he wanted to do was reach out and comfort her. Hell, all he’s wanted to do since he got here was reach out and comfort her, but learning of the hurt that this curse has woven into the life that she has come to believe is real just made it worse. 

He rinses off one more time before shutting off the water, realizing that showering is not the way to clear his head, but instead of getting dressed and waiting for Hope to wake up, he finds himself standing in front of the mirror and taking a good look at himself. 

It’s been a few days longer than usual since he has trimmed his beard, since he forgot his trimmers back at the apartment in Boston. The added fullness of it only seems to accentuate the lines of his face, the muscles of his jaw that are not quite as sharp and defined as they used to be. Not only is his beard fuller, but it is also lighter, tinted with more patches of red and grey than he remembers there being before, a characteristic he also notices is true with his hair, which has also grown a little longer than usual. But what really gets him are his eyes — or, better, the lines around his eyes. His eyes themselves are still the same startling shade of blue that they’ve always been, and he hopes that never changes. But around his eyes, webbing out towards his temples, sit deep lines. Not wrinkles, per say — much deeper than wrinkles.  _ Laugh lines.  _ He pulls the name up from somewhere in his memory, having read it in a book or heard it mentioned on the television, but he knows it’s right somehow.  _ Laugh lines  _ insinuates that he’s spent a lot of his life laughing, especially since he has been able to hold his little girl in his arms. Thinking of his darling cygnet pulls a smile to his face, a motion that accentuates the very lines he is thinking about, almost proving his point. 

He runs his hand across his beard, down the muscles of his jaw, and to the back of his neck, where he hooks his thumb under the chain hanging around his neck, pulling the rings hanging around it in front of his face and his mind back to his wife. 

She never answered him the night before, when he told her to let him know if she needed anything; though, he supposes if there was something that she needed, she either would have told him, or found help somewhere else, from someone that she  _ thinks  _ she knows better than she knows him, even though, in reality, that person does not exist. 

Hanging his head, he lets the rings fall down to his chest once more.  _ Gods _ , he misses her, misses waking up beside her every morning, the feel of her he held her in his arms. Where he was always rough edges, scars across his mind and on his body, she was always so soft, her words and her lips and her skin, in all the ways he never was, was never allowed to be. She was all the best parts of him, the reason those parts were able to exist after so many years of caring for no one but himself, and having to go all these years without her anchoring him down to the world was one of the hardest damned things he has ever had to go through — which is saying a lot. 

Killian lets out a long sigh, running his fingers through his hair before shaking some of the water out of it. It doesn't take much to dry himself off the rest of the way after all the time he's spent in front of the mirror, so he slides into his jeans, fixes his hair to look more reasonable, and goes back out into the room, where he sits on the bed, trying to distract himself with one of the novels on his Kindle app. 

It's just started to work, finally able to focus on the words without images of his crying wife rearing their heads, when Hope begins to stir next to him, rolling on to her side to use his thigh as a pillow. After a few more minutes, she turns up to him, eyes still heavy from sleep, and smiles. 

“Hi, daddy,” she mumbles, then yawns. 

“Good morning, darling.” 

“You're clean.” 

“Yes, I am.” 

She nuzzles down into his leg again, humming softly. “I should be clean, too.” 

He's missed these moments with her, when she is still half-asleep and says everything on her mind, and he can't help but laugh at her. 

“Then get clean, love. Take a shower, then we can go out on the  _ Jolly _ .” 

“What about mom and Henry?” she asks, and he feels his heart try to wretch its way up his throat. He's glad that Hope wasn't with him when he found Emma by the docks the day before, that she hadn't had to hear Emma's story — that he could still shelter her from some of the madness here. 

“I'll text her while you're in the shower and see if they would like to join us.” 

She hums again. “Okay,” she mumbles, then rolls away from him, climbs off the bed, and gathers what she needs to get ready. 

He hates lying to Hope, but if Emma wanted to talk to him, she would have reached out to him, right? Texting her again, when she had gone over twelve hours without responding to his first message, would be overstepping, right? He's just going to tell her that they were busy, even though just thinking about it burns a hole in the pit of his stomach. 

 

He has just released the moorings attached to the dock when he hears movement in the cabin below; before taking his place at the helm, he decides to investigate. 

When he opens the door, he finds Emma lacing up her boots, Henry still asleep on the bed. Emma turns to him, eyes wide, and presses a finger to her lips, begging him to stay silent, then points her finger towards the ceiling. “Up on deck,” she mouths, and he nods.

Hope is sitting against the railing paying him no attention, which he appreciates in this moment. He turns back to Emma, who slowly wets her lips before pulling the bottom one between her teeth, her cheeks slowly reddening. Unsure of what to do, Killian scratches the spot behind his ear. “We were about to set sail for most of the morning,” he tells her, unsure of what else to say. It’s certainly not the first thing he wants to ask her. It doesn’t even make the top five, if he’s honest with himself. So how it’s the first one that happens to come out of his mouth he may never know. 

Her eyes, which have been turned down, snap up to meet his.

“Don't let us stop you.” 

He smiles at her, if only for a moment. He wants to reach out to her, rest his hand against her cheek to feel her, warm against his worn palm. But he know he cannot — not yet. So he does the only thing he can before doing something he really regrets, and nods, turning on his heel away from her and back to the helm. 

So they set sail, Hope sitting down on the lower deck with the storybook in her lap while Killian mans the helm, Emma looking out over the water not far from him. The wind is blowing her hair that is not tied into her ponytail softly away from her face. He can swear that she’s never been more beautiful than she is right this moment, but he’s sure this isn’t the first time he’s thought that, either. 

And it certainly won’t be the last.

When he is on a course he likes, he locks the wheel and walks over to her, leaning against the railing hoping the space between them is enough to assure her comfort, even though all he wants to do is get closer. He gives her a moment to notice he is there before speaking, confirming that he does not startle her. When he does speak, his voice is soft, just above a whisper, and he hopes that she can hear him above the sound of the waves. 

“If you don't mind me asking, love, why are you and your boy on my ship this early in the morning?” 

For a moment, she is silent, and he worries that perhaps she did not hear him; but then she sets her head in her hands, elbows resting on the wooden railing, and he watches the rise and fall of her shoulders as she takes a deep breath. Slowly, the words start rolling, recalling her whole story from the day before: going home, then to the station, killing a few hours, Neal getting released, stopping to pick up Henry and David telling her that he’s already been taken home. 

Telling Neal she and Henry were leaving. It’s here that she loses her composure, a slight quiver working its way into her words as she continues. “He said I better find somewhere good to hide, because he wasn't going to let me just walk out of his life and never look back. But that's exactly what I did. But then I didn't know where to go. David and Mary Margaret's was the obvious choice, but then I would have had to explain, and if he wanted to come looking for me, that's the first place I would go. For some reason, you were the second person that popped into my head, before any of these people that I've known my whole life. You, who I've known for barely two weeks, but I guess after what you did for me yesterday, you just felt…” She pulls her lower lip up between her teeth, searching for the right word, which she finds after a moment: “Safe.” 

She stops, looks up at him, and he is silent, not sure what to say, if saying anything is even the right choice. And then she does it, that knitting of her eyebrows that she always did when she was searching his eyes for some sort of answer, and it's almost too much for him, especially when she reaches out to touch his arm, her fingers brushing just above the scars on his arm. The moment only lasts for the shortest of seconds before her hand falls to her side, the other pushing her hair out of her face, and she turns back to the water. 

“You must think I'm absolutely insane after all that.” 

He smiles at her, fights every muscle in his body when they cry out to press his hand against her cheek. “On the contrary, love, it actually makes complete sense.” 

For a moment, they are silent, simply staring at the other, and Killian fights the urge to spring and tell her everything — but before he does, the door to his cabin creaks open, revealing Henry, still in his pajamas, his hair sticking every-which-way from sleep. (Killian takes notice of this specifically, since the lad at this moment looks very much like Killian does in the same state, still groggy from sleep and not yet having groomed himself, and it pulls a smile to his lips.) 

When she sees him, Hope calls up from her spot on the deck, excited to see Henry, and he responds in kind, rushing down to hug her. Killian can tell that Emma is just as excited about the blossoming friendship between Hope and Henry as he is. 

 

Their morning spent on the water passes by quickly, all of them simply cherishing time spent with the others. Henry and Hope sit on the lower deck, slowly paging through the Storybook and whispering to each other, and Killian and Emma moving between periods of content silence and casual conversation, Killian revealing to her that they're thinking of staying in Storybrooke for a while, a subject he has not even breached with Hope — though he imagines she won't really argue against it. 

Around midday, Henry comes up behind Emma and wraps his arms around her hips, pressing his face into her side. 

“What's up, kid?” she asks, wrapping her arm around his shoulder. 

“I'm hungry.” 

“Me, too!” Hope yells, still on the lower deck, and Killian turns to Emma, a soft smile spreading across his face. 

“Well, love, with two hungry kids, I think this means it's time to return to shore, perhaps indulge in some lunch?”

Emma tries to return his smile, but the thought of going back to the shore — back to reality — is one that she had been mentally avoiding since stepping foot on the  _ Jolly Roger  _ the night before. 

Because when they get close enough to shore to restore Emma's phone service, reality hits. 

Between Mary Margaret, David, Neal, and Graham, she has nine missed calls in the past two hours, though most of them are time stamped for the past 30 minutes. She decides not to call anyone back until they reach shore, but it does not work; almost as soon as she reaches down to put her phone back in her pocket, it starts ringing. 

_ Mary Margaret. _

So she answers it. 

There is panic in Mary Margaret's voice, but it seems to get better when she realizes Emma has picked up the phone. 

“Oh, thank God,” she breathes, realizing Emma is actually on the other end of the line and not her voicemail message. “Neal is at Granny's,” she says, her words coming out quickly, as if she is unable to stop them. She sounds as if she is on the verge of crying, of completely falling apart, and with the few words she has already said to Emma, she doesn't blame her. She continues, “Screaming things about how you want to end it with him, how you've taken his son and left. Is this true? Did you and Henry leave? Where did you go? Why didn't you come to us? I called David at the station, and he and Graham are here now, but Regina is here, too, making it impossible for David to do anything, and Neal technically hasn't done anything in the first place. The only way he says he'll calm down is if you show up with Henry.” 

She hangs her head, wishing she were standing not in the middle of the deck of a ship, but closer to anything that she would be able to bang her head against. This is the last thing she needs, to need to acknowledge the nightmare life back on land has become. 

But she has no other option. She has to go, has to face this head-on instead of continuing to run away from him as she wants to. 

Killian can tell that something is wrong by the look on her face, but he cannot leave his current position at the helm, steering them back into the harbor. He feels his heart in his chest, pounding loud enough that he can swear that he hears it, because something is wrong. He’s not sure who she’s on the phone with, what the voice on the other end of it is telling her, but when she turns around to face him, her bright eyes meeting him from all the way across the ship, his suspicions are proven simply by the look in her eye. 

He can feel in his gut that it’s Neal, and when she hangs up the phone and makes her way back to the top deck to stand beside him, she fills him in on the phone call. 

“I have to go, Killian. There’s — there’s nothing I can do.” 

He catches himself starting to reach out his arm to pull her into his shoulder, try to comfort her. He can’t, there’s nothing he can do but stand there and watch her shoulders fall. 

He’s wrong, he realizes — there is something he can do. 

“Then we’re coming with you, love.”

She snaps her head to face him, green eyes wide with surprise. “No, please, you don’t have to.” 

“Aye, I know. But if you think I am going to let you go alone, then you are sorely misinformed.” 

The surprise on her face turns to anger. “What, do you think I need your protection? That I can’t take care of myself? All I’ve done my entire life is take care of myself, and I’ve been protecting myself from Neal Gold for most of my life, the last thing I need now is your sympathy.”

He lets her get through her tirade, knowing that stopping her when she is angry will do more harm than help, and when he does respond, his voice is soft, non-confrontational. “That was never my argument. I would just like to have the opportunity to back you up where and if you require it.” 

For a moment, Emma stares at him, and he’s not sure if he’s succeeded; but something in his expression makes her sure that he’s not going to back down, so she agrees with a soft nod of her head, the sharpness of her gaze blurring around the edges. It can't hurt to have someone else there on her side. 

 

As soon as Killian steps foot in the diner, he knows that the situation is worse than either of them imagined. All movement has stopped besides Neal pacing in the middle of the room, everyone else simply sitting at their seats and watching him. Thankfully, David and Mary Margaret are sitting in the booth right inside the door, and Killian and Hope slide into the booth beside them, nodding silent hello’s. 

And when Emma walks in, Henry's hand clamped in hers, every eye in the room turns to her. 

As soon as he sees her, Neal starts screaming again, his voice shrill and echoing off the surfaces of the small diner. “How dare you! You leave in the middle of the night, take my son with you, and don’t even tell me where you’re going! I’ve been worried sick about you!”

“Neal, please, can we have this conversation somewhere else? We don’t have to — “

“No, you’re going to talk to me here,  _ now _ , and this whole town should hear your story, you crazy lying bitch.” 

Emma does not respond immediately, searching for another way to talk him into leaving, but his words have started to take their toll on her. The last thing she wants is tell all of Storybrooke of the things she has put up with for Neal, that he had told her to leave and not come back, that she had to take Henry because she was afraid of what he would do to them — but she meets Killian's eye, sitting beside David in one of the booths, he looks as if somehow he is reading her thoughts, and simply shrugs, a sad smile momentarily flashing across his face. 

His words from earlier play through her mind:  _ “I would just like to have the opportunity to back you up where and if you require it.” _

She appreciated them in the moment, but it is not until she is standing here, every eye in Storybrooke on her as she tries to put her words in the right order, that she runs them through her head again to calm her down. Even if no one else in this room believes her, if she has no other allies in this, she knows she has Killian, and somehow, that is enough for her.

So as calmly as she can, trying her absolute best not to break down, she begins. She reminds him about what he did, her eyes set on his not because they want to be, but because she can't risk looking at anyone else. 

“You kicked me out of the house, Neal. You threatened me, told me to “find a good place to stay, because there’s no way in hell” you’re letting me and Henry go, so of course I took my son with me! Did you really expect me to leave him there with you, for you to treat the same way you've been treating me over the past few months? To yell at him, berate him, get incredibly drunk and remind him of every time he’s let you down? Have him wonder when you’re going to become more violent and move on to the physical?” 

Neal glares at her for a moment before declaring, “Well, he's coming home with me tonight.” 

“Like  _ hell _ he is,” she bites back, but Regina finally speaks up from her corner of the bar, where she has been watching intently. 

“Actually, Emma, you can't stop him. Henry is his son just as much as he is yours. You can't keep Neal from having him.” 

She takes a step back, her brows knitting low on her forehead. “You… you can't be serious. I just said that he was violent, that he threatened my life, and you're telling me that I have to send my  _ son  _ home with him?” 

Regina pulls the napkin off her lap and uses it to wipe off her face, her movements so slow that Emma can swear that she is doing it on purpose. “Yes. That's what I'm telling you.” 

Feeling her lip quiver, she pulls it up between her teeth, unsure of how much longer she can hold herself together, so she kneels down and puts her hands on Henry's shoulders. “I'm sorry” she says softly. “Call me if you need anything.  _ Anything. _ ” She leans in for a hug, one that he returns in kind, and while they're embracing, she whispers, “If he does anything, write it down. Time and date. I'm sorry.” 

Standing, she turns her eyes from Henry, then to Neal for a moment, and lastly to Killian before turning around and walking out. 

Unable to intervene, Killian watches as Neal grabs Henry by the shoulder, rough enough to elicit a low growl of his own, and walks him into the back of the restaurant, Regina jumping off of her stool and following not far behind. Killian’s not sure what he just witnessed, but he knows he doesn't like it. 

He has an idea — a crazy, terrifying, awful idea, but when Hope leans over and whispers in his ear, he knows it can't be  _ that  _ crazy if she has the idea, too. 


	12. Chapter Eleven

Her hands are shaking. That’s the first thing she notices stepping out of Granny’s. 

The second is that she has nowhere to go and no way to get there, remembering Killian drove them there from the docks, Emma’s nerves too high for him to feel comfortable to let her drive. But she has her feet, and a lot of energy to exert, so she takes off, her feet leading her back to the docks, the only safe place she knows. 

_ Safe place _ . Is that even what it is? Is anywhere safe, when both Neal and the mayor have it out to get her? 

_ Woah _ , where did that thought come from? Regina might be out to get her for some reason, but she has never been Emma’s biggest fan, for as long as she can remember. But  _ Neal _ ? Is Neal out to get her? 

Of course not. That’sa crazy. Neal just wants to protect his son, make sure that he does not lose Henry, even if he loses her. That’s it. That’s all of it. 

What happened to them? What happened to her? Where did she go wrong? 

She feels her lip start to quiver again, her emotions getting the best of her for what must be a record number of times this week alone. But, thankfully, before it can turn to anything more, she hears a car pull up beside her, the low rumble of its engine and the crunch of its tires against the pavement, and when she turns her head to face it, she finds none other than Killian’s slate blue Subaru pulling up beside her. 

Though she hears his window roll down, the soft sound of Pearl Jam coming through the speakers, she notices that he says nothing at first.

“Emma, are you okay?” 

When he does finally speak, she realizes that the tears she was trying so hard to dispel have started to fall, and she wipes her thumbs across her cheeks to clear them. 

“I just — I want to be alone,” she lies. The last thing she wants is to be left alone, but how does she tell him — this man that is practically a stranger — that he is the only company she sees herself keeping, after a day like today? 

“Forgive my bluntness, love, but I don’t believe that to be the truth.” 

Eyes wide with surprise, she turns to him, staring at her across the passenger seat.  _ How could he possibly know that?  _

“Do you really claim to know me that well, Jones?” 

She does not miss the ghost of a smile that passes quickly across his lips. “Tell me I'm wrong and I'll leave without another word."

She smiles at him, a strong opposition to the feeling that has spread over every other inch of her body, and reaches for the handle of the passenger door. 

“Somehow, you’re right,” she says softly, climbing in next to him. 

The first thing he notices once she is inside is that he is alone in the car. “Where's your daughter?” she asks, gesturing towards the empty backseat. 

“Funny story there, love, but my daughter is with your son and your husband.” 

She corrects him before even realizing what he said: “Neal is  _ not  _ my husband,” and then her eyes go wide, staring at him as he pulls away from the curb. “What did you just say?” 

“Well, after you left the diner and Neal and Henry went into the back, Hope asked me if she could go with Henry to make sure nothing happens to him, and I agreed. We told Neal that they were already planning on having a sleepover and watching a movie, that they had been talking about it all morning, and he agreed. With Hope there, I'm hoping that Neal would decide not to do anything he regrets. And I gave her my phone, told her to text you if there were any problems.” 

Emma is silent for a moment, then leans across the car and hugs Killian over the console, not even caring that he is driving. “Thank you,” she whispers.

After a moment, with Killian stopped at a stop sign, he turns to her. “So where should we go?” 

The first place she thinks of is his ship, the place she was able to get away from the world for a few hours just that morning, so when she suggests it, he turns to her, a wide smile spread across his face. 

“Save the two nights I was forced to spend in jail here because of your lovely mayor, I’ve not had a night to myself for just around twelve years, if I’m completely honest.” 

“You and your girl really have been all on your own, haven’t you? Since your wife left?” 

His face grows sad immediately, though there is something else under it that Emma can’t quite put her finger on. She shouldn’t have brought it up, she realizes almost immediately, though it is too late to take it back. 

“Aye. But my Hope means the world to me. She’s my everything, and I know my wife will feel the same way about her when we are finally back together. When we’re a family again.” 

The affection that fills his blue eyes as he stares at her for a moment is too much for her, especially after that heartfelt statement, and she has to look away, and continues staring out the window for the rest of the drive, which only lasts a few minutes.  _ How can he have so much faith?  _ The question is on the tip of his tongue, almost stumbles out of her mouth a few times, but every time she goes to speak, she notices his humming, whistling — his contentment — and she knows that she cannot bring the subject up again so soon. 

 

“Would you mind if I went and laid down for a little while?” she asks as he leads her down the docks, overwhelmed by both the events of the day so far and the questions about him that filled her head during their car ride. “I didn’t sleep well last night, and I —” 

“You don’t have to explain yourself, Emma,” he says, his voice soft, and when he turns to face her, gesturing up the ramp that leads to the deck of the  _ Jolly Roger _ , his eyes are filled with the same softness. “Take as much time as you need, just let me grab a few things from the cabin so as to not disturb you and it can be all yours.” 

“Thank you, Killian,” she whispers, not sure that her voice would allow her to do anything more, and she reaches out to touch his arm as she passes him, her fingers touching the skin just above his brace. 

She realized earlier that day, as he stood by the helm of his ship, that he had removed the thin button-down that he wore over a faded  _ Guns ‘N’ Roses  _ t-shirt, and that it was the first time that he bared his arms to her since arriving in Storybrooke, revealing at the same time the apparatus that attached his fake hand to the remaining stump of his arm. “An old Navy injury,” he had told her the first time he saw her looking at it, and though it had piqued her curiosity more than once, she had never brought herself to asking about it. It was also the first time she saw his tattoo, worn enough that the colors seemed to run together after all the years since he’d gotten it, but it was still clear enough for her to see: a heart with a dagger going through the top and out the bottom, with a name written across a ribbon in the foreground. She had not been able to get close enough to read the faded letters, and though she could not be completely sure, it looked as though it started with an M. 

The corner of his lips shoot up in the beginnings of a smile, though it grows no further than that. 

She follows him down into the cabin, leaning against the edge of the bed as he reaches into the drawers of the desk and pulls out a few books. 

“You can sit down here at the desk if you want, I’ll be more than fine in the first mate’s bunk.”

“I insist. It’s a gorgeous day outside, I’ll make myself a nook on the deck and sit in the sun. That’s good for the skin.” 

She smiles across the cabin at him, but he does not return it. 

“You spend so much time in the sun, Killian. Besides, this is your ship, the last thing I want to do is intrude.” 

This time, when he looks up at her from the chair behind the desk, she can swear that his bright blue eyes  _ sparkle  _ at her, which is entirely impossible, since the only light in the cabin is that streaming through the windows behind him, waiting for the afternoon sun. “I can assure you, love, the last thing you can ever do is intrude.” 

They both stop for a moment, simply staring at the other, and there is a thickness in the air that Emma cannot quite understand. But it only lasts a moment before he pushes himself to his feet and rushes out of the cabin, shouting a quick, “I’ll be on the deck when you’ve had your rest,” before disappearing through the door. 

She falls onto the bed, first sitting before falling onto her back and staring up at the ceiling. There are far too many thoughts flying every-which-way inside her head, more of them about Killian Jones than she would like to admit, and though her mind seems to be moving at a mile a minute, it does not take too long before her exhaustion and the rocking of the ship from the waves overwhelms her and lulls her to sleep. 

 

When she wakes up, the late-afternoon sun is streaming through the cabin windows, almost making the room too bright for her eyes to acclimate to. She sits up in the bed for a few minutes, letting the sun shining through the windows warm up her face as she scrolls through her Instagram feed, not really seeing any of the pictures that she passes. 

Instead, her mind is set on the chaos her life has become, the only beacon of light through the darkness the dark, mysterious man on the deck above her. She sits in silence, waiting to hear some evidence of his movement above her, but she ship is silent, simply groaning under the wind pushing against the old wooden hull. So, taking advantage of the silence above her, she climbs down from the small bed, her socked feet soft against the floor as she pads over to the map on the wall. It’s certainly one of the strangest maps she has ever seen, land names that she's never heard of mapped out in full detail. Or, more appropriately, lands that she has heard of, but only in stories. Camelot. Arendelle. Neverland. Agrabah. Wonderland. 

But then she looks at the largest one, incredibly detailed compared to the smaller ones around it, this one a land she has never heard of:  _ Misthaven.  _  For some reason, this one catches her attention more than the others, and she runs her fingers across the worn lines, the calligraphic town names spread across the map.  _ Hope Hollow. Windhaven. Greenfair. Ashtown.  _

There is something about them all that feels so… familiar. That’s absolutely impossible, though. None of these places exist, and she assumes that he keeps the  _ real  _ maps in one of the drawers in his desk. But one of the names in particular, the writing a bit larger than the rest, catches her eye, though, and she runs her pointer finger across the name of it:  _ Coastal Cove.  _ It’s all the way against the sea, some of the words even over the edge of the drawn coast, but the small drawing of a castle is what keeps her attention.  _ The Castle of Misthaven _ . When the pad of her finger runs over the raised ink of the castle drawing, she can  _ swear  _ that she sees the castle in question, a large, light structure set against a bright sky. But it must just be her imagination, of course — this castle doesn’t even exist, nor does the town or the land. 

She shakes her head, the vision of the castle disappearing, and moves back towards the bed, pulling her boots back on before heading back up to the main deck. She doesn’t mean to be quiet, simply does it out of habit, but when she sees Killian spread across a blanket laying behind the helm, his arm tucked under his head and one of the books he grabbed from his desk still spread across his chest, rising and falling with his breath. As she takes a few soft steps towards him, she can see his dark eyelashes against his cheeks, the rippling muscles of his curled bicep moving in his sleep. 

He’s… well, he’s attractive, there’s no way to ignore that. The dark scruff that covers his chin is not thick enough to cover the sharp juts of his jawbones, accentuates the soft pink of his lips and the sharp lines of his ears. Even with soft grey-red patches in his beard and his hair, it is still overwhelmingly dark black. 

Suddenly, she is overcome with reproach, reprimanding herself with the realization that she is the last person that should be appreciating the man in front of her. Sure, she and Neal may be going through some problems, and they are certainly not going to last much longer, but that does not mean that she should be attracted to another man, even if that man is the only person who seems to understand her, to understand the ferocity of everything that is happening with Neal. 

But he is a man searching for his wife, trying to rebuild his family for the sake of his little girl. Emma understands that, wishes she would have had someone in her life when she was Hope’s age that cared about her even a fraction of how much Killian cares about his daughter. 

Emma does not want to wake him, so she turns away from him, leaning instead against the railing of the ship and looking out over the harbor before her. But Killian must have heard her at some point, and joins her there after just a few minutes, standing silently besides her until their gazes meet and he flashes a soft smile at her that she feels in every muscle in her body. 

And that absolutely terrifies her. 

“Did you sleep well?” he asks, his voice still thick, not having fully recovered from his own nap. 

She returns her smile. “I did, actually. And did you?” 

She turns just in time to watch him scratch behind his ear, the pointed tips and edges of his cheeks turning red. 

“You noticed that, then?” 

She leans over, bumping her shoulder against his, and both of their smiles grow when their eyes meet, and though she’s almost entirely sure she has never actually felt butterflies in her stomach, she can swear that she feels them right now. 

But her definite attraction towards him isn’t something that has to affect their relationship, right? 

“There’s nothing to be ashamed of, Jones. Everybody needs a nap sometimes, and you said this was the first day without your Hope since her last day of school, and your first evening without her for almost her whole life. I’d say if anyone deserves one, it would be you.”

“Well, thank you, love.” He runs his fingers through his hair, then leans further against the railing. “Do you have any plans for this evening?” 

She shakes her head. “Henry and I were going to have a quiet night before I had to go in for the night shift, but David told me not to worry about coming in.”

“Good man.” 

“Yeah, he is. He and Mary Margaret have done more for me than any other people I’ve ever met. They’re…” She pulls her bottom lip up between her teeth. “I’ve never known my parents, but the Nolans are the closest I’ve ever had.”

Killian sighs, swallowing the lump that rises up his throat. Emma was never the one with the sad backstory, was not the one in their relationship that needed to have her walls torn down. Emma was the one that saw through to  _ him _ , convinced him that he was more than the atrocities he had committed, more than all the terrible things that happened to him. But here, in this land, she was made to believe that she was just like him, that she had no one that cared about her the way he has been alone since Liam’s death all those centuries ago.  

It breaks his heart. She’s too pure for this, too good for all the hurt that her life has brought her in the twelve years since the curse was cast, and though the only thing he has wanted to do is break the curse, realizing this has only made that need grow. 

“So, tell me, Killian,” she says, needing to fill the silence that has fallen between them. “If you could do anything with your first free night in years, what would that be?” 

He turns to her, the sun shining behind her and haloing her golden hair, which is billowing gently in the breeze. The answer to her question is suddenly obvious as he looks over to her, and he has to tear her eyes from her profile before he becomes even more overwhelmed. Twelve years of seeing someone only in dreams is awful enough, but having her so close to him without actually being able to act on his rather physical desires has become his new personal form of hell, possibly comparable to the twelve years of cursed lives that everyone here has been put through. 

Except, of course, Emma. 

“Well, love, if I had to choose, I would make myself a hot cup of tea and a nice dinner, and then sit and read my book.”

Emma scoffs next to him. “Okay, old man. Remind me not to let you make the plans.” She laughs, but Killian simply smiles, still trying to hold himself together. “However, a nice dinner does sound good.”

“Anywhere you would recommend? The only places I’ve eaten here are Granny’s and that burger and ice cream place.” 

Emma just smiles at him again. 

 

They end up at a seafood restaurant a few miles outside of town, by the next dock down the harbor. Knowing how Emma tore down his own walls of self-doubt when they met, he tells her a few things about his own childhood: the death of his mother, his father abandoning them, Liam's death, which he describes as due to a “mission went wrong” — not technically a lie, but not including all of the harder aspects of his story: Neverland, Peter Pan, Rumplestiltskin, becoming Captain Hook.  

As she stabs the last few pieces of her pre-entree salad with her fork, she begins to recall her own story; or, better, the story that she has come to believe as true over the past twelve years — the story that Neal and Regina concocted for her to try to make her life here as miserable as possible. According to this story, she was abandoned at a church in a town on the other side of the state, raised in group homes and the occasional foster home until she was fourteen, when she ran away from the Swan family and found herself in Storybrooke. When she tried to dine-and-dash at Granny's, David picked her up at the side of the road, just a deputy back then, and though she did not believe he was telling the truth at first, she agreed to let him take her home to his wife, who had just lost her child. Mary Margaret made them dinner, Emma evading questions the way you would expect a fourteen-year-old girl on the run would do. Mr. Gold, who is a lawyer on top of a myriad of other things, helped them adopt her, much to Regina's dismay, and the next year, she started going to school. That's where she met Neal, who was a few years older than her but in some of her same classes.

They don't talk in class, but she catches him one day trying to steal someone's car, and he begs her not to tell her dad, offering to take her out to dinner. 

Emma’s eyes turn down to what is left of her scampi, hoping that doing so would hide the flash of pain that crossed her face, but it does not. A smile spreads across her lips, but it does not reach any further than that; her green eyes are still brimming with sadness when she finally turns them back to him. 

“And the rest, they say, is history. David wasn’t very happy when I moved in with him after graduation, but Mary Margaret was always more of an optimist.” 

“Were you happy?” 

He’s not sure what brought him to ask. If his mind would have given him a moment to think about it, then he most certainly would not have. But it comes out anyway, though he’s sure the surprise he fails to mask on his face is nothing compared to the shock that passes across hers. 

“Was I…” she starts, twirling the rest of the pasta on her plate around her fork, but then drops it back into the plate, where it lands with a clank. “I don’t know,” she says softly, covering her face with her hands, and for a moment, Killian isn’t sure he actually heard her right. 

When she meets his eyes again, her smile is a little more genuine than before. Not by much, but a little. 

That has to mean something. 

“I don’t know why I’m telling you this, Killian,” she mumbles, pulling a piece of bread out of the basket between them and pulling a small piece off of it, using it to sop up some of the sauce left on her plate. “I can’t even decide why it’s taken me this long to realize it, but I don’t… I’m not sure if I ever  _ was  _ happy.” 

If Killian thought he wasn’t sure how to feel about his own question, Emma’s answer hits him like a knife to the heart. She has no reason to tell him the truth, even if her answer was no. But here she sits nonetheless, being fully honest with him even if she does not know why she feels she needs to be. 

Here, for the first time in weeks — months —  _ twelve years  _ — she feels like his Emma again, the one he fell in love with, even before she saw him for who he truly was. His wife, his savior, the mother of his children. 

He opens his mouth to speak, even though he has no idea what to say, but before anything can come of it, her phone buzzes on the table between them. Somehow, they both feel the same thing, the same worry over their children, and she flips her phone over quickly to reveal the message. 

Killian Jones:  _ Something's wrong. He's making us get in the car. Help.  _

Then another, almost immediately.

_ I think he knows I have the phone.  _

Together, they take a breath, too afraid to immediately think about what this might mean. He raises his eyes to hers, hers trying their best to hold back tears realizing that it is not just her son that is in danger, but Killian’s daughter as well, and he reaches across the table to cover her hand with his, hoping that the same warmth that passes through him at the touch helps calm her, as well. 

But when her phone buzzes again and both of them turn their eyes down towards it again, no matter of warmth can alleviate the chill that runs through both of them, every muscle in Killian’s body tightening as he reads the words for a second time, these obviously not from his daughter. 

_ Good try. Better luck next time.  _


	13. Chapter Twelve

They share one more quick glance before Killian jumps out of his chair, dashing towards the counter to pay the bill while she gathers her things, meeting him as he turns around and following him out the door. 

When he reaches between them and takes her hand in his, she does not even question it. She’s not even sure that she realizes it right away, too overwhelmed by the obscene turn her day has taken — hell, her whole life. The turn  _ her whole life  _ has taken. 

Killian’s hand is still shaking when he shifts the car into park, and he slides the fingers of his prosthetic into the apparatus attached to his steering wheel, created for him to make driving with the prosthetic easier, resting his hand on the shifter between them. Emma must notice the shaking of his hand, or simply be craving his touch the way he has since he first saw her again, because she rests her hand on top of his, wrapping her fingers around his palm and giving him some warmth, something he feels is lacking in his life knowing that his Hope could be in distress. 

In her other hand, she calls David, putting the call on speakerphone and holding the device in front of her. 

“Oh, hello, Emma!” Mary Margaret answers, none of the urgency in her voice that Emma feels coursing through her veins. “David and I were just talking about you and what happened today —” 

Very quickly, Emma loses her patience. “I need to talk to David.”

“Why, Emma? What’s the matter?” She still does not seem to pick up on the worry in Emma’s voice, and it takes all she has not to yell back at her through the phone. 

“Please, Mary Margaret, now.” 

Emma practically sees the older woman’s face fall, even over the phone. “Okay, of course,” she says curtly, and Emma hears her moving in the background, then some incoherent mumbling as the sound of a shower stops abruptly. 

Another moment, and then, “Emma, what’s wrong?” 

“Meet me at the station as soon as you can. Something’s happened.” 

“Emma, what — with Neal? Oh, god, with the kids?” Emma opens her mouth to speak, but before she can get anything out, David says. “I’ll be there in just a few minutes. Anything you can tell me?” 

Emma’s throat is suddenly dry, and when she tries to answer the question, nothing comes out. Instead, she feels Killian squeeze her fingers, sharing a sad glance with her before he takes over. 

“Hope has my phone, but it’s probably been turned off. She said that Neal was making them get into the car, and then Neal found the phone. We don’t want to picture the worst that could happen, but it’s damned bloody difficult when that man has our children.” 

David is silent for a moment, trying to wrap his head around this whole situation. “Yes, of course,” he says finally, and they hear the rumble of his old truck coming to life in the background. “I’ll see you soon, okay? We’ll work this all out.”

“Okay, thanks, mate.” Killian says, taking his eyes off the road long enough to look over at Emma, who is worrying her bottom lip between her teeth, practically willing her eyes to keep from watering. 

He doesn’t push her, knowing that speaking would only make the tears fall faster (though that is one of the things that she has no idea he knows about her, so he keeps it to himself, biting his lip to keep the slight smile he feels from stretching across his face thinking about the life they had together in Misthaven.) But he can hear her trying to steady her breaths: in through the nose, hold, out through the mouth, as slowly as she can, just audible over the almost-silent Dave Matthews whispering out of the speakers. He can also hear when the deep breath in grows shakier as she struggles to hold herself together, and he tightens his hand around the fingers resting in his palm as she wipes her cheek with the other hand. 

“What have I done?” she whispers, her voice breaking as sobs begin to shake her shoulders. 

“Oh, no, no,” he breathes, releasing her hand to wrap his arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer, and she turns towards him, her elbows resting on the console and her head hanging in her hands. “You can’t blame yourself for this, love. None of this is your fault.” 

He knows that she is not going to want to believe him, but the harsh words that she spits back at him are far from what he expected. “Of course this is my fault, Killian. You don’t need to lie to me. I could have fought Regina against leaving Henry with him. I could have just taken him myself, to hell with the consequences. Regina might be the mayor, but she’s no lawyer, and I’m at least a cop. There are so many things I could have done to avoid this, starting with the first time Neal raised his voice to me, yet here we are, not only my son in danger, but your girl, as well. And it’s all because I couldn’t stand up to Neal and Regina myself.” 

“You never could have seen this coming, Emma. You can’t blame yourself for not expecting this, because no one would have. Please, Emma, don’t be so hard on yourself.”

Finally, she seems to take his words to heart, the deep breath she takes a little less shaky than the others, though Killian continues to rub small circles over her back with his hand. But when her head practically shoots up to look at him, he sees the flash of motion out of the corner of his eye, and he takes advantage of the straight road before him to look at her, perhaps for a moment longer than he should have. 

“How are you not a wreck right now?” she asks, eyes narrowing towards him, and he cannot stop the edge of his lip that pulls up into the beginning of a smile. 

“Because I believe wholeheartedly that, like me, you will do anything to get our little lad back, and I have yet to see you fail.” His cheeks begin to redden with his accidental slip-up, but if Emma notices, she does not respond. 

After a minute, she straightens her back against the seat once more, groaning as she stretches the muscles, but when she relaxes again, her fingers find his, curled once more around the shifter knob, her eyes focused on her phone as if she does not even realize what she has done. 

 

When they reach the police station, everyone is already moving. David is pacing across the open space, not even trying to hide the scowl that covers his face at the words of whoever is on the other end. Graham is sitting at his desk, tapping angrily away at the keyboard with the receiver from the office phone cradled between his ear and his shoulder. Emma sits down at her own desk, trying to call Neal’s cell phone — an idea that popped into her head for the first time when they were getting out of Killian’s Subaru. 

And Killian? Well, somewhere between his driver’s seat and the door to the station, Killian has completely lost control, suddenly becoming a bundle of nerves under the harsh fluorescent lights of the main room. 

“Have we made any progress, mate?” Killian asks David, moments after the phone leaves the man’s ear, and he can see the tension in his jaw before he even answers. 

“I just got off the phone with Regina. She says there is nothing we can do for now, since Henry is Neal’s son and you gave him permission to take your daughter with him.” 

Killian feels his own anger coursing through him in an instant, and it takes every ounce of self-control he has to not spew the truth then and there, that Neal is  _ not  _ Henry’s father, that  _ he  _ is Henry’s father and he just wants  _ both of his children back _ , thank you very much. 

He grinds his back teeth together to stop himself from saying any of it, though, and it is in this silence that the other two fill David in on what they have learned. 

Emma goes first, plain and simple: “Neal’s turned off both his and Killian’s phones. I’d be surprised if Killian’s is even still in the car with them.” 

_ That man is not smart enough to have thought of that _ , Killian thinks, but he keeps the comment to himself. 

“The phone company is making me jump through hoops, and I need to verify my identity as a police officer before Mr. Jones can verify his own. If you can think of another plan, Dave, this might take too long to even get to a point where it would be helpful.”

Killian turns away from the three of them, tugging on the ends of his hair so roughly that his scalp begins to hurt. He tries to tell himself that he shouldn’t be as worried as he finds himself in this moment, but he can’t help it — that  _ monster  _ of a man has not only his daughter, the only pride and joy in Killian’s life over the past twelve years, but also his son, though everyone in this town save a choice few believe Henry to be Neal’s. 

He tries to find a reason behind this, a  _ logical  _ reason that Neal would not harm either of his children, but if he knows that Hope is the key to unlocking the curse, it’s hard to convince himself that Regina and Neal do not know as well. Even more so when he remembers that everything Neal has done since the enactment of this curse was to get back at Emma for… 

For  _ what _ , exactly? As far as he’s aware, Neal never met Emma in the Enchanted Forest. The Rumpelstiltskin that Killian knew, his Crocodile, had only Baelfire, who Killian met as a young boy in Neverland, years and years before. But he hadn’t heard anything about Bae or any other spawn of the Dark One for years after that. 

Another question for the next time he sees Jefferson, he guesses. 

But not knowing the answer to that does not quell the fear he cannot keep from seeping into his gut, a fear that if he does not get to his children in time, he might lose his chance to save them. 

His chance to have his family back. 

His chance to break the curse. 

Without even realizing it, he has pulled the chain out from under his tee-shirt, sliding his pinky finger far enough into Emma’s wedding ring to be able to slide it back and forth across the chain. 

He is trying his hardest not to focus on the fear rising through his chest, and Emma’s hand on his shoulder pulls him from the spiral his head was taking him through. 

“Those were your wife's, right?” 

It is far from any of the questions he expects, and he does not understand at first what she is talking about. “What?” 

“The rings?” she asks, gesturing between them, and he realizes he has pulled out the chain once more. “They belonged to your wife?” 

“One of them, yes. The other was my mother's.” 

She nods, silent for a moment, before she says, “You made the right choice, you know.” Once more, her words surprise him. 

“What?” he asks again, obviously too overwhelmed by everything that’s happening to form coherent thoughts — possibly for the first time in his life. 

“Sending Hope with Henry,” she says, her voice full of assurance, and she smiles gently at him. “You may have saved his life. I'm sure your wife and your mother would have seen it the same way.”

He tries to smile, but it does not last more than a moment. When he does speak, his voice is much darker than he anticipated, though it articulates how he’s feeling better than his words ever could. “I appreciate your trying to help me, darling, but the only way I will feel better is when I have my girl back in my arms, and you your lad.” 

Not only recognizing but understanding the fear that she can see etched into his features, dripping from his voice, she watches as he releases the chain and crosses his arms over his chest. She  _ wants  _ to reach out to him, wants to do something to make him feel better the same way he had done for her just earlier that morning, but when she reaches out and presses her hand against his arm, a vision flashes through her mind, a vision of a younger Killian holding a little girl in his arms, smiling down at her. But just like that, it disappears, and Emma pulls her hand back from the contact as if his skin was on fire before silently excusing herself from the building. 

With nothing else to do, Killian approaches Graham, still clacking away on his keyboard, just as he turns to call him over. 

“What can I do to help?” he asks, setting his hand on the man’s shoulder. 

“It’s a long shot, but if you can verify your identity to your cell provider and gain access to your account, we might be able to locate the phone that way.” Graham adds, “I read about a case where they contacted the carrier through the police and they were able to turn the phone back on for a location, too. No promises that it will work, but it's at least a start.”

“I'll try anything to get my daughter back.” 

David takes this opportunity to step outside, following Emma, and he finds her sitting on the bench just outside the door. 

“Any idea why he would do this to the kids?” he asks, sitting down next to her, and he can tell by the look that flashes across her face — a cross between sadness, worry, and guilt — that she has an answer for him. 

“Well, I told you about what happened a few days ago, but I never expected him to get his own son involved, though. Or Killian's daughter. Hope just wanted to try to help Henry, had I known I wouldn't have let them do it, but I do feel at least a little bit better knowing Henry's not completely alone with that lunatic.” She knows that she should be trying to hold back tears, but even when David wraps his arm around her shoulders and pulls her into his warm chest, they do not come.

“We're going to find them, okay?” 

She  _ expects  _ herself to start crying, but she doesn't. The tears don't come. While before she was upset, she realizes that she's not surprised by Neal's actions, and this realization just pisses her off. She doesn't have time to be upset now, she's just angry, but she’s going to get her son back. 

“Then let's get to work.” 

Killian and Graham are still on the phone with the carrier when David and Emma come back inside, arguing with the man on the other end of the phone, so no one notices right away when Mr. Gold walks into the station until he clears his throat behind them, and they all snap to face him. David is the most surprised, but even Killian can’t hide his sneer. 

“What can we do for you, Mr. Gold?” David asks, and a sly smile spreads across his face. 

“I believe I know where to find something you’re searching for.”

“Excuse me?” Emma asks, voicing the confusion that has taken over the room. 

“Your children, Miss Swan,” he says as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “My son has taken your children, and I have reason to believe that he is planning to do great harm to them.”

“And why are you here?” Killian asks, his hand suddenly itching to remove the prosthetic and twist on the hook weighing down the inside pocket of his leather jacket. 

He takes step towards Killian, his eyes never once leaving his, and leans forward on his cane. When he speaks, Killian can tell that they are only meant for him. “I may have a past full of dark secrets, Captain Jones, but even I am above kidnapping children.” 

Killian stares at him for another moment, trying to decide whether the Crocodile can be trusted here. And then, just as he hears David question it under his breath, he realizes just what he has just said. 

_ Captain Jones.  _

If he knows who Killian is, then he  _ must  _ know that Neal is not Henry's father. Why else would he come here? 

“Well then, where are they, Gold?” Emma asks, causing both of them to finally break their eye contact, though only briefly. 

Gold's eyes snap back to his, wordlessly questioning whether he trusts him or not; Killian simply nods, though still hoping he's made the right decision. 

“I have a cabin on the outskirts of the town, in the forest. That's where he's going.” 

“You're sure?” David asks, already grabbing his jacket off the hook on the wall. 

Killian had expected them not to immediately believe him, but using up precious time to question him when the lives of his children are on the line is too much for him. “What are we waiting for, let's go!” he yells quickly, trying to change the subject. 

But both David and Emma shake their heads at him. 

“You're staying here,” David says, and he turns to Emma just as she nods in agreement, grabbing her pistol out of the drawer. “Uh-uh,” he says, but this time it's to Emma. “You're staying here, too.” 

“David, no —” she tries, but the sheriff just holds up a hand. 

“You're too close to this. I don't want you there.” His unspoken words echo loud enough in Killian's mind that his head begins to hurt:  _ in case something goes wrong.  _

Emma nods silently, the same unspoken words written across her face. 

“Gold, you're with me,” David says, pointing to him as he passes him in the doorway. “Graham, follow us in the cruiser.” 

Just like that, the three of them are out  the door, the station silent in their wake. 

Killian, who has tried to sit in one of the office chairs, pushes himself up quickly just a few moments later and begins pacing through the center of the room, his hands unsure what to do with themselves. Emma, however, has positioned herself at her computer, trying to distract herself with other things to do, but every few moments, her eyes flash to her phone on the desk in front of her, waiting for some kind of update. 

After a few minutes, Emma laughs lightly under her breath, and when Killian looks at her monitor, he notices that she is looking at a satellite image of a house in the middle of a clearing, surrounded by dense forest. 

“Did he really think that we couldn't have found his  _ father's cabin _ ?” 

“No offense, darling, but he's a bloody idiot.” 

This time, Emma's laughter comes out as a bark, and she quickly moves to cover her face with her hands. 

“Sorry, love,” he mumbles, sitting back down in the chair beside her desk. “That was a bit crass.”

When she moves her hands from her face, he notices her blush. “Crass, yes,” she says softly, the smile not leaving her face. “But also not wrong.” 

She laughs again, an incredibly lovely sound in the midst of all this chaos, but it is cut short by the sound of Graham's voice coming across the CB equipment sitting on the far side of her desk. 

“Emma, do you read me?” 

In her rush to pick up the radio, she almost drops it back on the desk, and her hand is visibly shaking from the adrenaline when she brings it up to her mouth. 

“Yeah, Graham, what's going on?” 

“We're approaching the cabin. Neal's car is parked outside and the lights are on. It looks like he's here, I'll update you as soon as I can. Over.” 

“Thank you, Graham,” she breathes, her free hand resting against her heart. “Go get our children back. Over.” 

She holds her head in her hands, elbows resting on the desk, and it takes every ounce of self-control in Killian's body not to reach out and place his hand on her shoulder. 

“They're going to be fine, right?” she asks, and the strength in her voice — a direct opposite to her stature and her words — is more than Killian feels. So he gives in and does the only thing he can think, placing his hand delicately on her shoulder, and she shifts one of her hands to meet his, her fingers entwining through his. She is soft and warm and everything he has missed since the day he went through the wardrobe, and when she turns to face him, distressed but with an undeniable glimmer of  _ hope  _ in her bright green eyes, he desperately wants to kiss her. 

But he can't. He  _ knows  _ he can't, but that doesn't make the desire disappear. 

“Of course they're going to be okay, Emma. David will make sure of it.” 

She stares at him for a moment, her eyes narrowing to search his for something. And then she smiles, as strong as her mind will allow given the circumstances, and nods. 

Moments turn to minutes, both of them unmoving, afraid even to breathe, too nervous for anything else. Both of their gazes are glued onto the CB receiver. Minutes begin to feel like actions, the spaces between the seconds ticking away on the clock grow longer, until — 

“Emma, you still there?” David's gruff voice comes over the radio, making both of them jump off their chairs. 

“Yes! Yes, yes, we're here!” 

But the next voice that comes over the radio isn't David's. 

“Mom!” 

Emma's hand flies up to her cheek, wiping away a tear before it can even fall down her cheek. 

“Hey, kid. How — how are you?” 

“I just — I want to come home. So does Hope.” 

Emma sighs, and Killian can feel the shaky sigh she lets out under his hand, which is still resting against her shoulder.

“I know, Henry, me too. Can I — can I talk to David for a second?” 

“Yeah, Emma, what? Over.” 

“David, I — thank you.” She says, her voice still quivering. “But can you… can you bring them to the docks instead of the station? I don't…” Emma's not even sure what else to say. All she knows is that she wants to avoid Neal at all costs. but David hears when she releases the button. 

“Of course, Emma. We'll see you soon. Over.” 

There's an actual, legitimate sigh of relief, and they both stand up, sharing a quick glance before moving into an embrace, Emma's head tucked into Killian's shoulder. 

“It's alright, Emma,” he whispers, pressing his lips against her hair. “The children are fine, everything is going to be okay.” 

It’s not until Killian lets go of her hand to open her car door that he realizes he was holding it. 

  
  


Emma can't sleep. It has nothing to do with the ships bunk hard against her back, or the eleven year old that keeps kicking her. It doesn't even have anything to do with Neal, or anything that happened that day. 

Alright, maybe it has a little bit to do with Neal. But it has more to do with that blue-eyed man whose actions possibly saved his son's life. 

David probably should not have told her this, but on top of everything else, Neal was drunk, with a blood alcohol level that wasn't high enough to be illegal, but that still made Emma's blood boil knowing that he was driving not only his own son but someone else's kid around. The only man she has ever loved just kidnapped his own son, on top of all the other horrendous actions he's committed in just the past few weeks. 

There are too many thoughts that she needs to be focused on right now, and not a single one of them has anything to do with Killian Jones. She lives her own life, needs to make important decisions about herself and her son, but the only thing she can think of is the way he has comforted her over the past few days, the care he obviously has not only for her, but for Henry. Henry, who looks more like him than his own father. 

Well, that is  _ certainly  _ not a thought she needs right now. Because, even deep down, she knows that she needs to do something about Neal. Neal hurt her, hurt Henry, somehow become a monster over the past few weeks instead of the man he has been since Emma met him. 

_ Twenty years _ , Emma realizes, running her hand over her face for what feels like the millionth time that night. She gave almost twenty years of her life to that man, and look what happened, all in the blink of an eye.  If the person Emma had spent twenty years with turned out to be that much of a monster, how could she ever be able to trust anyone again? 

Even someone as kind and caring and  _ gorgeous  _ as Killian Jones? Everything in her head is telling her that all she needs for now is to be alone, to spend some time with her son and get over the devastation that Neal's actions caused her life. 

She can't let someone else in now, even someone like Killian. Can she? 

  
  


Killian can't sleep. 

The lull of the waves, the rocking of the boat, the memories of the mattress below him — and, most of all, Hope curled up next to him, facing the wall of the cabin — should all factor into his ability to fall asleep in moments within this cabin, a gift he had been granted for as long as he'd been sleeping in that cabin. 

But every time he closes his eyes, he sees Emma, his wife, his love, staring back at him, and it hurts him all the more to remember why she is not with him right now. Sure, she's not too far away, but the few feet between his cabin and the first mate's feels like the years that they have spent apart all over again. 

And what's worse is he  _ knows  _ Regina has something up her sleeve. He  _ knows  _ that she had something to do with what Neal did that day, and he has a terrible sinking feeling that he will not be able to break the curse until he finds out what it is.


	14. Chapter Thirteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a bit of a shorter one for you, but it comes with a twist -- my favorite twist of the whole story, actually, and something I've been waiting to share with you since I first thought it up. Its been a long week, and I don't want to keep you guys waiting any more, so here you go!

The next morning, Granny’s is silent. Emma can tell that people want to ask her about what happened — hell, even though it was already late when everything started happening, it seems like the whole town already knows about the tension that has taken over Emma’s life before she can even order her coffee. 

She suspects it has something to do with Granny, given the glares Emma did not fail to recognize when she would bring Neal with her. She can’t prove it, but she would be willing to bet that she’s right. 

But whenever anyone has the nerve to approach her, all she has to do is turn to them, narrow her blazing green eyes that may have a darker red around them than usual, and the question seemed to disappear. 

And it’s not just that day. It continues like this for a few days, a week, curious questions on the tips of everyone’s tongues about why Neal Gold is suddenly in Storybrooke jail and their house very quickly up for sale. 

Not that there was ever another choice. There was no way that Emma was ever going back there, besides to pack up what was left of her belongings there, piling them in David’s garage until she could afford her own place. Mr. Gold even came one day for some of Neal’s belongings, knowing that Emma was intending to sell. Emma could tell that even  _ he  _ had some questions on the tip of his tongue, but he had the decency to keep them to himself, the only words shared with her a brief greeting and an assurance that he would lock up the house when he’s finished packing up Neal’s office. 

But it is through this that Emma realizes just how  _ little  _ she actually owns. Sure, she has clothing, a nice collection of books that she’s gathered herself, and some sentimental things that Henry made her in school. But that really is the end of it. It’s enough to fit in just a few boxes, and that thought is much sadder than anything she needed to pile on top of everything she already feels. 

The only light in her life is the dinners that she has started to spend with the Nolans and the Joneses, all of them gathered around Mary Margaret and David’s farmhouse table a few nights a week. Mary Margaret and Killian have started cooking together, dreaming up the fanciest meals Emma has ever eaten. Emma almost suggests that the two of them should open a restaurant, but then she thinks about the impact it would have on Granny — and the impact that would subsequently have on her, being the one to offer up the idea — and she keeps her mouth shut, simply smiling up at Killian as he sets one of the dishes in front of her with the most subtle wink she has ever seen. 

One of these nights, Mary Margaret asks Henry if he is excited to go back to school, and Emma watches a wave of realization cross Killian’s face across the table from her. 

“ _ Back to school _ ,” he mutters under his breath, so quietly that Emma would not have heard him if she hadn’t been watching him, especially over Henry’s enthusiastic response. 

Later that night, when Hope has, once again, fallen asleep on the Nolan’s couch, Killian is sitting outside with Emma and David, a bottle of beer in his hand as he stares up at the stars. For a while, he says nothing, which does not go unnoticed by his companions, and Emma finally snaps. 

“Killian, what’s on your mind?” 

He does not respond right away, his eyes still focused on the sky, but then he takes a deep breath. “The summer is almost over. Hope needs to go back to school soon, and I should really start looking for a job for a little bit of extra income.”

“Just stay here,” Emma says, the words out of her mouth before she can stop them. As both David and Killian turn to her, the latter’s eyes wide, she’s thankful for the darkness around them as it hopefully hides her blush. But since she can’t take her words back, she can at least continue to argue her point. “You told me that you never had much in Boston, beyond Hope. But you — the two of you have been here for a few weeks now, and I think that you’ve found a good place here in Storybrooke.”

He’s useless against her argument. She  _ wants  _ him to stay here, to continue to be with her (though not in the way he so desperately longs for). There’s nothing else he can say, and he hopes the smile on his face is enough to make that obvious. 

“I’ll have to run it by Hope and make sure that it’s okay with her, but I can’t imagine why it wouldn’t be.”

(He asks her the next morning, and she hugs him and says that he’s been waiting for him to ask since they first got there. They fill out the paperwork that day to register her for sixth grade at Storybrooke Middle School.)

However, searching for a job that he both wants and is capable of is a whole different story. Jefferson offers him a position as a bartender at the Rabbit Hole, but he only has one working hand, so that does not seem like the right choice. Granny even tries to get him there as a chef, but he’s sure that he and the old lady would butt heads on lots of things — the first being her lasagna “recipe” that he can tell she buys frozen but has been able to keep his mouth shut about it. He's glad he's starting cooking with Mary Margaret regularly, since it was one of the things he missed the most about Boston.

But when he walks by Smee one morning mumbling under his breath about how he could use more help but “ _nobody in this town knows anything about ships_ ,” he knows he’s found his place. 

Smee is more than happy to help him out, sharing some of the open hours with him in a makeshift schedule that can continue to change as Killian’s schedule changes, and he shakes his hand once they have finished all necessary paperwork, Killian hoping to get back to lunch at the Nolan’s in time, when Smee smiles at him for the first time. 

“I suppose this is your official welcome to Storybrooke then, captain.”

Killian’s breath hitches in his throat. “Ex-excuse me?”

The already red-faced man blushes deeper. “I just — you captain that vessel over there, it would do her a disservice to refer to you as anything less.” 

Though his heart still seems to be pounding at a mile a minute, threatening to burst out of his chest, he manages to smile at the man, nodding. “She and I both appreciate that, Smee. Perhaps one day, I would be able to give you a tour of her.”

Smee returns his smile with a nod of his own. “I would be grateful, Mr. Jones.”

“I’ll see you the day after tomorrow for my first shift, I can show you around her when we’re going over the rest of the job, if that would be alright?”

“That would be perfect. I suppose I’ll see you then.”

Killian turns on his heel, still on his way back to the  _ Jolly  _ to grab a few things before heading back to the Nolan’s, when something catches his eye. 

Some _ one _ . 

His mind tells him who he thinks it is, but it’s not… it’s not possible. No  _ way _ . 

He follows him around the corner, down the docks, and right up to the  _ Jolly Roger _ , where he stops as Killian approaches. They both stand there for a moment, Killian too afraid to move, and then the man he was following turns around and finally faces him. 

_ Absolutely bloody impossible _ , he thinks to himself, but too many absolutely insane, impossible things have happened recently for him to pass it off as his imagination, because there, in jeans and a light grey henley, smiling at him, is Liam.

His  _ brother _ . 

His brother, who  _ died  _ in his arms. 

His brother, who died in his arms, almost  _ three hundred years ago.  _

“Liam?” he breathes, but Liam does not answer. 

He just smiles, opening his arms to his brother, who can do nothing to stop himself from stepping into them.  “Hello, little brother,” he says finally, his thick arms wrapped around Killian's back.

Killian breathes a laugh. “Normally, I would have corrected that to _ younger _ , though unless you’re somehow  _ not  _ a figment of my imagination, I believe that’s no longer true, is it?”

Liam does not answer, just holds Killian in the hug, until the “younger” Jones brother backs away, staring into eyes that he never imagined he would ever see again. 

“How are you here, brother?” 

With every word he says, Killian’s disbelief grows larger. “After I died, Pan sent his shadow for my body. For as long as I was in Neverland, the magic of the island would keep me alive. Pan kept me there for lifetimes, his prisoner, alive only to do his will and unable to do anything but follow his orders. And then the Evil Queen made him a bargain for my body, just a few years before the curse was cast, and brought me over to be used as a pawn, but you must be getting closer to breaking the curse, because I was able to break free.”

“How do I know this is not just a scheme by the Evil Queen to get me to trust you, only to have you stab me in the back?” 

Liam smiles softly at him, shaking his head the way he always did when he knew Killian was wrong. “If that were the truth, brother, why would I ever have told you about her in the first place?”

With his mind filled to the brim with questions, Killian certainly doesn't understand the entirety of what Liam is telling him, but he is too overcome by excitement to question it any further.

Killian nods just as his cell phone vibrates in his pocket, which he pulls out to reveal a text from Emma:  _ Waiting on you for lunch. _

Killian claps his hand on his brother’s shoulder, relieved to feel his hard muscle under his hand once more. “I have some people I would like you to meet.”

The entire drive to the Nolan’s, Killian listens to Liam explain that he has been hidden in a room in the basement of the hospital to remain a secret, and that is why he has not seem him in the weeks since he came to Storybrooke, but Killian is paying more attention to his own mind, trying to come up with the plan of just what he is going to say to Emma. 

He is just two blocks away when he decides what he is going to do, a decision that becomes necessarily almost as soon as they sit down at the table. 

“So what brings you to Storybrooke, Mr. Jones?” Mary Margaret asks.

Before Killian can stop him, Liam corrects her: “Captain, actually.” 

Killian watches the confusion pass over David’s face, just as it did when Mr. Gold called Killian the same thing, but all Mary Margaret does is smile. “Oh, okay. Captain Jones.”

Thankfully, Liam finds his gaze out of the corner of his eye, remembering that the truth is not the thing to tell these people — at least, not yet. 

“Liam’s been in the Navy since I was just a boy, and this is the first time he’s been able to come overseas since Hope was just a baby girl, but since I’m not in Boston, I just told him to come here.”

The table shares a nod, seeing his lie for the believable story it is, and lunch carries on as usual. 


	15. Chapter Fourteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, hi, hello. Sorry this chapter took, like, a week longer than I wanted it to, but moreso than ever before, I wanted to make sure that it was the best version it could be. A lot of things are said, some things are revealed, and someone gets badly beaten, in case that's a warning anyone needs. As always, if you have any questions, please let me know. And, of course, yell at me at the end. You know you're going to want to.

Even though they had decided Killian would stay at Grace’s party with Jefferson, Emma insists that Killian spend the day with his brother — and, when she suggests this, Killian forgets everything he needed to ask Jefferson about. He is so overwhelmed by the fact that he has a  _ whole afternoon  _ to spend with his brother, who has been dead for two hundred years, that all of the cares and worries about the curse and Emma and  _ Neal _ have disappeared when he follows his long-lost brother up the ramp and onto his ship. 

_ Liam’s  _ ship. 

Well, that’s a complication that Killian never thought he would have to work through, but he mulls it over in his head, watching Liam take his rightful place behind the helm.

But when Liam turns to him, his bright blue eyes reflecting the sunlight off the ocean, he feels his breath hitch in his chest. This sight, his brother back with him, back where he belongs (and in  _ jeans _ for Christ’s sake) means everything to him, more than he ever imagined it would. 

“Liam, brother, I truly am sorry,” Killian says, leaning back against the railing beside the helm to face him. 

“Sorry for what?” 

“I—” he starts, but the words are stuck in the back of his throat. He takes a long, deep breath, and even though his eyes are glued to a knot in the wood of the deck by his brother’s feet, he can feel Liam’s eyes on him through the silence. “For everything I’ve done since your death. I threw away the ideals that we held so close to our hearts, the life of goodness and heroics that you built so desperately for me after everything that happened while we were still boys. You — you gave up your childhood to assure that I could enjoy my own, and I’ve harped on that fact for more years than a man should be allowed. You gave up everything good in your life for me, and the moment you left me on my own, I went and threw it all off the deck of this bloody ship.”

Liam takes a step towards him, reaching a hand out as if to touch him on the shoulder, but he does not fill the space between them and lets his arm drop back to his side. “You have done no wrong, brother. All I ever wanted for you was to have a life of your own, which is what you have done for yourself in the years since I was taken from you. You stayed true to yourself, Killian. That’s what has always mattered.”

Something about this statement feels wrong to him, begins eating away at him from the inside.  _ Has  _ he stayed true to himself? Was the life he built after Liam’s death really his own, or just what he imagined Liam would want after the devastation that overtook them in Neverland? How do you even build a life of your own on the memory of a man who sacrificed everything he had for your happiness? How could he ever be sure that what he did was his own, and not based on ideas Liam planted in his head ever since he was a boy? 

Killian has no response to this, turning his back to Liam so he can look out over the harbor. He hears the creaking of the boards under Liam’s feet, can tell just by the sound of them that Liam is moving away from him, towards the steps and into the captain’s cabin. But he doesn’t care. All he can focus on is the lulling sound of the waves against the hull of his ship, hoping that it is enough to get his brother’s words out of his head. When he hears the door to the cabin beneath him fall shut, he finds the paperback he has stowed in one of the bins of the deck for occasions such as this and positions himself against the railing. For a while, Killian is able to focus on the words in front of him. But it is not too long before his eyelids become heavy, falling shut of their own accord, and before he even reaches the end of another page, sleep has overtaken him. 

The sun has moved through a vast expanse of the sky by the time  Killian’ eyes open again, his skin warm from the rays beating down on him while he slept. He turns towards the center of the ship to find Liam there once more, his forearms resting against the helm as he looks out over the horizon. 

Killian stays still for a moment, allowing himself the opportunity to paint a new picture in his head of this moment, the same regal picture he had for so long of his brother, though it began to fade around the edges as the years --  _decades_ , really -- without him passed. When he feels he has fully sealed the image into his brain, he pushes himself off the deck, his aching back groaning with the movement, and goes to stand beside his brother. 

“Tell me about the life you have built for yourself, Killy,” Liam says after a moment, not taking his eyes off the horizon, though he reaches his arm out and sets his hand on Killian’s shoulder. 

Killian takes a deep breath.  _ How much should he tell him?  _ There is almost three hundred years’ worth of events that his brother has missed. Does he start with when he tossed his body into the water, the burial at sea he knew his brother would appreciate, then threw everything they stood for out to sea with him and became a pirate to spite the king that killed Liam? How he spent two hundred years seeking vengeance on the man that took his first love from him, a revenge that he has questioned time and time again whether Liam would approve of or not? 

Or does he talk about the life he has found in the past twenty years, working for the kingdom, falling in love with a princess, and being forced away from his wife so he could save the life of his daughter and someday have his family back? 

Killian just does his best to smile, pushing down all the worry that has manifested in his heart over the last three hundred years —  and not for the first time. “That’s going to take quite a bit of time, Liam. We’ve spent quite a few lifetimes apart.” 

“Well then, tell me about your wife. About your family.”

Killian is so excited about the opportunity to share his happiness with his brother that he does not even realize that he's avoided the subject of Emma, of his relationship and his children and the curse, since Liam showed up. Yes, he took him to the Nolan's, but he avoided telling any of them — Liam included — more than they needed to know. All he's ever hoped for since he felt Liam take his last breath in his arms was to have him back, and now that he is here, his excitement far surpasses any of the questions bouncing around the back of his mind but failing to make their way to the forefront. 

He can't stop the smile that starts to spread across his face. “My darling Emma,” he starts, then sighs. “She is the strongest person I've ever met, present company included, and I never had a chance against her charm, though she will undoubtedly tell you the opposite of mine. I thought myself incapable of allowing myself to love someone again as I did with my first love,” Killian's eyes fall to the tattoo on his forearm, so he misses the flash of anger that passes across Liam's face at the mention of Milah, and he continues, though he brings his hand up to pull Emma's engagement ring out from under his shirt. “But Emma saved me in ways I was not even sure would be possible anymore, and all I need to do is break this bloody curse and have her back as my wife once more, have the rest of my family back.”

“Are you close to figuring it out? To breaking the curse?” This time, Killian does not fail to recognize the haste in his question, and he turns to his brother, eyes narrowed. 

“For Emma's sake, and the sake of my children, I can only hope so, hope that we're through with whatever that monster Neal Gold was trying to accomplish. But you yourself said I must be, for you to have escaped from wherever the Evil Queen was keeping you. ”

Liam nods. “Right. Of course.” 

When Killian does not respond, Liam’s eyes narrow at him, a flash of anger crossing his face, but it disappears in the blink of an eye.  _ What the hell was that?  _ He stares at Killian for a moment longer, and Killian sets his jaw, trying to decipher the look on his brother's face. But Liam sternly nods his head once more before turning away from him, slowly beginning to work his way around the ship. Killian tries his hardest to ignore him, trying to go back to the novel he had when he fell asleep, but his eyes keep leaving the page to follow his brother around the ship, his hand stretched out before him as he drags his fingers along the surfaces. 

A buzz from his pocket, however, is more successful, and he pulls his phone out to reveal a message from Emma: 

_ Jefferson wants to talk to you. Says it’s urgent.  _

Reading over the words again, Killian pushes himself away from the railing and makes his way back towards the dock. “If you’ll excuse me, brother, I need to go pick my daughter up.” He does not mean for the words to have as much venom behind them as they do, but there is nothing he can do now to alleviate it, and he leaves Liam on the deck of the ship that is rightfully his without another word. 

* * *

 

“Killian, good,” the man breathes the moment he opens the door for him. “I have — there are a few new pages in the storybook that I need you to see, before it’s too late.” 

“Too late?” Killian asks, wishing that the words spewing out of the Mad Hatter’s mouth didn’t make him sound so… mad. “What do you mean 'new pages'? Jeff, slow down, please.” 

But he does the opposite of that, his pace quickening as he makes his way through his living room and to the bookshelf that houses the storybook. “I can’t— can’t—  _ can’t _ slow down,” he stutters. “It might— might already be too late, if what Emma told me when she showed up was true. But oh,  _ oh _ , I fear we are already too late.” Somehow, his words keep getting faster, his fingers moving quickly across the pages to find what it is he’s looking for.

When he turns the book towards Killian, though, his jaw drops. 

“And this — this wasn’t here before, you’re sure of it?” 

Jefferson nods, a much slower movement than everything else he’s done. “I’ve paged through it every day since we’ve gotten here, making sure that nothing has changed. And when I went through this morning, this is what I found. I was hoping to tell you when you showed up with the kids, but Emma came in your stead, and I didn’t know what to do.” 

Killian takes the book out of Jefferson’s trembling hands, stepping around him to set it on the dining room table. 

_ Absolutely bloody impossible.  _

Killian recognizes the scene immediately: the Dark Hollow, where Pan’s shadow hides when Pan is not using it. But it’s not Pan’s shadow that is in the picture, it’s his brother’s, the arm of it held tight in Pan’s hand. The words on the page corroborate Liam’s story from earlier: Pan’s shadow pulling him from the water where Killian dumped his body, flying him back to Neverland, being used as a pawn by Pan. But none of that is what gets his attention. 

The  _ picture  _ is what gets his attention. Because it’s not Regina, not the Evil Queen that comes to Neverland to trade Pan for his brother, it’s the Dark One. 

And it’s  _ not  _ the Crocodile. 

If the book weren’t sitting on the table when he realizes exactly what —  _ who  _ — he was seeing, it would have fallen from his hands. 

“I have to —” he mumbles, his hand shaking as he tries to pull his phone out of the pocket of his jeans. “I have to tell Emma,” he chokes out, his whole mouth dry. He’s out the door as he presses his phone to is ear, but it goes straight to voicemail. Just as he hangs up to try again, though, he rounds the corner besides Jefferson’s house, is thumb hovering over her name just as a large metal pipe makes sickening contact with the back of his head, and he is out before he even reaches the ground.  

* * *

 

When Killian finally finds the strength to open his eyes, the shock he feels only lasts for a moment before he realizes that, really, he’s not shocked at all. 

They’re not far from where he was knocked out, his body aching and covered in scrapes from being dragged around the corner and into a nearby alleyway. But standing before him, arms propped over a metal pipe held on his shoulders, is none other than Neal Gold, smiling down on him with an expression that reminds Killian very much of the one he had seen on Neal's father on multiple occasions -- though always before something terrible came to happen.

He can't help but feel the same thing now.

“Captain Hook,” he says, and when Killian tries to focus on him, the pounding in his head grows so strong that his vision begins to blur. He squeezes his eyes shut, hoping to keep himself conscious enough for whatever Neal has planned. 

The Dark One. How did he not see that coming? 

“Stay with me here, Jones. We have  _ far  _ too much to discuss for you to keep… nodding off!” Killian’s eyes fly open, focusing on Neal for a moment before he realizes that all of the pain in his head has disappeared. He’s standing in a position reminiscent of his own father, one hand on his hip and one held out in front of him, palm facing the sky. For a moment, he even  _ sounded  _ enough like Rumpelstiltskin that Killian could swear it was just a trick played on him, some sort of magic — 

_ Magic.  _ He’s been healed by magic enough times before to recognize the familiar tingle running down his spine, not to mention the fact that the pounding in his head has all but disappeared.  But this was supposed to be the Land  _ Without  _ Magic. Wasn’t that the whole purpose of coming here? 

No matter how his strength returned, he uses it to push himself off the ground, using the wall behind him to help him stand. 

“If you have things to discuss, Dark One, now seems like the opportune moment.” Killian’s voice is low, barely above a growl, and a devious smile grows across Neal’s face. 

“Ah, yes, so you have discovered my secret, then, Captain? I was hoping that your brother would be a reasonable distraction to keep you from the truth for a bit longer, but it seems as if I have failed once again.” 

“My brother,” he breathes, originally meaning it as a question, but realizing exactly what Neal meant the moment it left his lips. His eyes, which have fallen to the ground at Neal’s feet, slowly raise back up to meet Neal’s. “You sent Liam.” 

He laughs through his nose, one quick, short breath, and Killian tries his best to keep his devastation from reaching his face. Of  _ course  _ it was too good to be true. He should have known that, should have seen this coming; instead, he failed to see the obvious truth before his eyes like the naive twenty-year-old the presence of his brother made him feel. 

Which, he's willing to bet, has been the plan all along.

“Of course I sent Liam. Did you really believe all that garbage about him breaking free, because you’re somehow getting closer to breaking the curse? I sent him to spy on you, and I was hoping it was an act I could keep up with for a while, because, I’m not gonna lie to you, Hook, I really liked seeing you in your most vulnerable state.” This time, Killian can do nothing to hide the devastation that covers his face. Somehow, it is not until this moment that Killian really realizes everything that Neal has taken from him. 

“You’re thinking about her, aren’t you?” Neal asks, though he fails to tear Killian’s focus from his wife, even as his eyes find Neal’s again in the slowly disappearing light of the day. Killian doesn’t have to respond, though. “Of course you’re thinking about her. Why wouldn’t you be, she  _ is  _ your wife, isn’t she? Not to mention the most beautiful woman I have ever laid my eyes on.” Killian feels his jaw tense at his words, but for some reason — magic or otherwise — he cannot find the ability to voice any of the words trapped in his throat. “Life certainly has been good to you, Captain. Much better than you deserve after everything you have done to me.”

“Excuse me?” The words escape easily, blocking out all other thoughts , no matter how important they may be. “Everything  _ I  _ have done to  _ you _ ?” 

“Oh, yes, go ahead and plead ignorance, you pirate bastard.” He spits the last words, though the insult is nothing compared to the quick impact of Neal's now-lowered pipe against his shin. “You steal my mother from me, rip my family apart, do nothing to rescue me from Pan, and then act like you're the pillar of a good man as soon as someone offers you a second chance.” 

Neal transfers the pipe to the opposite hand, then attempts to punch Killian in the jaw, but he ducks out of the way, his own fist making contact with Neal's stomach before the pipe hits his other leg. 

For the briefest moment, just as Neal's weapon makes impact with him, Killian sees not the alleyway, but instead a sight that he has done everything in his power to remove from his memory in the years since he found himself there. Before his eyes, he is transported back to Silver's ship, getting a beating not from the Dark One in Storybrooke, but by his old slave owner, who hits him over the back. 

In a flash, though, it is gone, turning back to pavement just before he hits it with his face. 

“If it weren't for you, I never would have lost my mother!” Neal says, kicking him in the ribs, the force of it pushing him to the side. “My family would have been a family, but instead you killed her!” 

“I didn't kill her, mate,” Killian chokes out, thanking his lucky stars that his words stop Neal's movements, even if just for a moment, so he can pull himself back to his knees. “Your father killed her. Tore her heart out of her chest and crushed it right in front of me.” The pipe falls to the ground with a clatter, and Killian takes this opportunity to use the wall behind him to help him to his feet. 

“You're lying,” Neal says, but the sadness in his eyes remains unveiled. “He said — he said that you killed her.” 

“I  _ loved  _ her,” he breathes. “I loved her more than your father was ever capable of, and he couldn't live with the fact that she wanted to be with me.” 

“No!”

“He took her from me simply because she refused to go back with him.” 

“Even if that's true, why did you never come save me from Pan? Why did you let me stay with him all those years on that island?” 

This question has a much more difficult answer, and Killian holds his hands up in front of him in hopes of calming Neal further. “It was years before I even knew you were there,” he says softly. “And when I did learn, I assumed that you — that you were there of your own accord, and that I would be the last person in the world you would want to see after what happened on the  _ Jolly. _ ” 

For a moment, he watches as Neal's eyes soften, but it does not last for more than a flash, quickly followed by his fist finding Killian's ribs. It happens again, whatever magic Neal is using along with his fists, and Killian is back on Silver's ship, lying on the cold deck as the men around him join in on his beating, a consequence for one of his many drunken mishaps. Even with just that flash of a memory, Killian remembers the day clearly, one of the few memories that time or rum have not erased from him. 

“So you left me to  _ die _ ? You really thought that was your best option? The most honorable choice?” 

Killian finds his throat dry again the words he is trying to say like a thick cotton stuck at the back of his mouth. “I did a lot of things during my time in Neverland that I've grown to regret. But I know that, had I known then what was happening to you, I would have done my part to aid in your escape. We can't change the past, but we —” 

“Believe me, Hook, if I had the power to change the past, I would make sure that my mother never met you, that you never found love, because that's exactly what you deserve!” 

This statement tugs on Killian's heart strongly enough that he does not even realize Neal has swung in his direction until the crunch of his fist against his jaw. 

“That's all I've ever wanted, is to hurt you as much as you've hurt me, to ruin your family the way you ruined mine. And as soon as my father made me the Dark One, saving my life after Pan's shadow tried to kill me, I knew what I had to do.” 

Killian watches, frozen in place, as Neal picks up the lead pipe again, and though his mind screams at him to fight back, he stands helpless as it hits his shoulder, then his hip, and finally his back as he crumbles back down to the pavement. 

“How did you do it?” Killian asks, both curious about the answer and hoping that it will hold off his attack while he could regain his strength. 

When a sick smile spreads across Neal's face, he takes as deep a breath as he can manage while Neal starts his recollection, pacing in front of him. 

“When Pan's shadow tried to stop me as I finally got away from Neverland, I almost died, finding myself at my father's doorstep barely hanging on. The only way he could save me was with the Darkness, so he transferred his powers over to me and spent the next few years teaching me how to use the Darkness, how to use magic, but I always had just one goal:  _ ruining  _ you. And then the Evil Queen came with her curse and needed the help of the Dark One to cast it — but my father wasn't the Dark One anymore,  _ I  _ was, so I convinced her that I could do the same things she required from her, with one stipulation, one she was happy to grant to me: that in this cursed world, in the land of fake memories, I was in a relationship with the Princess, who I learned was married to none other than a now-domesticated Captain Hook. And that was good enough for me, but when the curse was cast and we found ourselves here in the Land Without Magic, there was a little surprise that I was not expecting, the icing on the cake of my revenge: she was  _ pregnant _ with your little boy, but thought he was mine thanks to the curse." The smile that spreads across Neal's face once more is so reminiscent of that of his father moments before he killed Milah that he feels his breath escape from his lungs, thinking about all the pain that Emma has been put through simply because of his own actions centuries before. 

And he is so caught up in this thought that he barely notices Neal has pulled a dagger from his waistband until he has buried it between his ribs. 

But Neal keeps talking, inching closer to him as he sinks the blade deeper. “All I wanted was to cause you pain, and I found the perfect opportunity in ruining this boy’s childhood, tearing his parents apart the same way you tore my family apart when I wasn’t much older than he is. At least, until you put your daughter in my grasp the other day, and I  _ had _ to take the opportunity to stop you from breaking my curse, though it seems my father has become a big softie in this new land.” 

Killian feels Neal's hand resting above his heart, hoping to defeat him oncr and for all. "But killing you will do just as nicely,” he says, his face just inches from Killian's as he tries to plunge his hand into his chest to remove his heart. 

It takes every ounce of energy he has left, but Killian musters a laugh, feeling his mouth slowly fill with blood as he mumbles, “Do you really think I’m stupid enough not to protect my own heart, knowing the evil I’ve been up against for years?” 

Neal stands stone-still for a moment, unsure of what to do now, and it takes everything he has left not to fall to the ground as Neal's eyes slowly narrow, locked on his. 

“This isn't over, Hook,” he spits out before turning on his heel and leaving him there, slowly falling down the wall as his legs give out under him. As Neal disappears around the corner, he allows his eyes to close, but the moment before the darkness takes him, another memory flashes before his eyes — no, not a memory, a vision, and one much different than the ones that happened during the fight. 

It's a sight he's spent years remembering every detail of: Emma on their wedding day, in a soft white gown and pale blue flowers in her hair, falling in curls over her shoulders. He promised her that day she had never been more beautiful, and every time he remembers it, he thinks the same thing. 

But here, in this vision that his mind creates in what he swears will be his last moments, she stands between their children, Hope in a light blue dress like her mother's and Henry in a crisp little suit, they create the most beautiful sight he has ever seen, though only for a moment. 

And then, nothing.


	16. Chapter Fifteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, hello, what's up! I'm back and here with another (shorter, but important) chapter, now that my semester is over! We don't have too much longer before this story gets wrapped up, so stick with me, guys!

Emma has been at the Nolan's for less than five minutes when her phone begins to ring in her pocket, and she answers it to find a very distressed Graham on the other end, his words running together in a breathless rush. 

“Emma, you need to come to the station right now, you and David, something has happened with Neal and he just — you need to come here  _ now. _ ” 

Emma has so many questions, but his haste makes it obvious that he has no time for any of them. But she tries anyway, goaded on by the curious expression on David's face. 

“Graham, I need you — I need you to slow down, okay? Can you tell me what's happened?” She raises her eyebrows at David, who is watching her from the couch, but she gestures towards the door to the back porch, moving towards it as he nods. “You said something about Neal?”

Moments later, once David has closed the door behind him, Emma puts her phone on speaker and sets it on the table in front of her, pacing beside it as Graham tries to collect his thoughts. “Neal’s — well, Em, he’s gone. He just… disappeared, literally, in a cloud of smoke.”

“What do you mean he disappeared?” David asks, eyes wide as he looks up at Emma, pulling at the tips of his hair with his fingers. “People don’t just disappear.”

“I’m watching the tape right now, boss. And he did. He just disappeared, like magic or something.”

Filled with an overwhelming mixture of frustration and fear, Emma can’t even form a coherent comment, running her hands over her hair before dropping her eyes to the ground. As some form of mantra, she keeps repeating David’s last comment in her head over and over again, hoping that makes it true:  _ People don’t just disappear _ . 

“Why didn’t you stop him?” David’s voice is filled with rage, perhaps more than Emma’s whole body. 

“I didn’t — I don’t…” Graham tries, but he can’t quite get the words out. “I don’t know what happened. The mayor showed up, and —” 

This makes Emma’s head snap up to meet David’s glare, her eyes wide. “Regina?” 

Graham huffs, loud enough to be audible over the phone, before continuing: “Yes, Regina. She showed up and talked to him for a couple minutes, bit it’s like I was frozen, I couldn’t move. I couldn’t do anything, and then she left and I turned to follow her but I heard Neal laughing in the cell behind me, and when I turned back to look at him, he smiled at me and disappeared in a cloud of grey smoke.”

The sinking feeling that started in Emma’s stomach when she answered the phone turns to a ton of bricks, and it takes everything in her not to collapse into the nearest chair. She tries to do what she always does when the world is about to collapse around her: formulate a plan. 

“Well, we should start at the station,” David says. “Let me see this damned footage of Neal to see if we can make heads or tails of anything. There has to be a reasonable explanation for all of this, it’s not like magic or anything.”

_ Jefferson _ . 

Emma straightens her back, looking around David’s backyard as if she’s going to find anything there, but David is too busy on the phone with Graham to notice. But in her head, it sounded like…  _ no _ , that’s impossible. She remembers something Jefferson said in passing, something that made no sense then, but now… well, it still makes no sense now, but perhaps a little bit more than a few hours ago. 

_ “You know what the issue is with this world? Everyone wants some magical solution to their problem and everyone refuses to believe in magic.”  _

_ Jefferson.  _

There’s no one in David’s back yard whispering clues in her ear, especially not Killi— 

_ Killian. _

This time, the voice is her own, calm and collected and understanding the severity of the situation. Because if she were Neal and had somehow —  _ (no, certainly not magic, there’s no such thing, right?)  _ — escaped from prison, who would she go after? The answer is obvious, and realizing it, she feels her heart pounding in her chest harder than it ever has before. 

Why?

_ Because you care for him, you idiot.  _

Because he’s in danger and he doesn’t even know it. Because if she were Neal, escaped from prison and out for revenge, the person she would go after would be the man that helped Emma escape from his grasp, that showed her the truth and made her see that she was never really in love with him in the first place. 

_ (Damn, that’s harsh.)  _

_ Killian.  _

“Graham, listen,” she says, cutting off whatever thought David was in the middle of, not caring about the glare he sends her way. “I’ll meet you at the station in a couple of minutes, as soon as I can, but I need to call someone, okay?”

“Were you not listening to anything I just said?” 

She shakes her head, too scared and overwhelmed to care by this point. “And you need to stay here with the kids, okay? Keep them safe, protect them if the need arises but pray that it doesn’t. This is where you need to be.”

He opens his mouth to speak again, but snaps it shut when he realizes she’s right. “Yeah, okay, but keep me in the loop! I want updates as often as you have them.” 

“Of course, boss,” Graham says over the phone, but Emma just nods, trying her hardest to smile as David leans in to kiss her cheek. 

“I’ll be right there, Graham, alright?” she asks, but doesn’t give him time to answer before she ends the call, moving as quickly as she can through the house and her phone to pull up Killian’s contact, pressing the call button just before throwing the door open and running to her car. 

Voicemail. 

She curses technology as she climbs into the driver’s seat, opting for a quick text instead of a voicemail in hopes it means he would see it sooner:  _ Call me ASAP. Urgent _ before pulling away from the curb. 

 

When she bursts into the station, Graham is sitting at his desk, the security footage pulled up on his computer. He’s just restarted it, probably for the hundredth time, when she steps up behind him, and she watches the events unfold just as he described them on the phone. Regina walks in, holding something in her hand as she holds the other out towards Graham, freezing him as he turns in his seat to face her. Once he is frozen, 

She holds the item in her hand, a long, intricately-carved dagger, out in front of her, approaching Neal’s cell. Emma watches on the screen as his eyes go wide and then narrow before he begins to speak, and she curses them for not opting for the audio recording devices they discussed a few weeks back. 

“Did you hear what they were saying while you were…” she pauses, searching for the right word, and decides on “frozen?” 

He turns in his chair to look at her, and she can tell that he’s taking this pretty hard. 

“I mean, I obviously don’t remember it word for word, but sort of? Something about  _ it  _ coming back, which they were both pretty excited about, and then she commanded him to “find the pirate” and “end it” before she left, and by the time I was… freed… she was gone.” As he finishes his recollection, he gestures to the screen just as Regina turns to walk away and out of the shot of the camera. When Graham is able to move again, he turns towards the back door — towards the camera — and then back to the cell where Neal is laughing, flashing Graham a wicked smile before — literally — disappearing into a cloud of smoke. 

Graham is silent as he watches the next movements play out on the screen — as he jumps out of his seat, pulling his pistol from his hip as he fills the space the desk and the cell, but Emma already knows that there is nothing there to see. 

She sees him hang his head in defeat as the video on the screen restarts, taking a deep breath before saying, “I don’t even know what to do, Em. I don’t — I was useless against him before, and not he can just… disappear? Does that mean he has magical powers? Is that even possible?”

Emma shakes her head, hoping her hand on his shoulder is consolation enough for what he must be going through. “I really don’t know, Graham, but I think — I think we need to start with finding this bastard, yeah?” 

Graham nods, his eyes lighting up with a flash of excitement, which Emma wishes she could share. Instead, she’s just drowning in worry: for her family, for Henry, for Hope and Killian. Graham’s right: Neal was dangerous before this new addition of “magic” or whatever… who knows what he might be capable of now. 

They decide to patrol the town, Graham heading towards the center while Emma starts on the outskirts. She doesn’t know why (or, she does and chooses to ignore it) , but she feels pulled towards the docks, taking her time to check every nook and cranny. But she has just parked her car when she hears Graham over the radio:

“Suspect seen exiting alleyway behind the Rabbit Hole. He looks… son of a bitch, he looks like he’s covered in blood, but he doesn’t seem to be injured. I’m going to investigate.” 

She slams the car back in drive, peeling away from the docks. 

Across town, Graham exits his car slowly, hoping to go after Neal, but just as he parks it along the curb behind the bar, he disappears again, in the same cloud of grey smoke as before. So instead Graham investigates the alley from whence he came, shining his flashlight against the dark brick walls to find a man leaning against the building, sitting on the ground and severely injured. A few steps closer, and he can see that it’s Killian , bloody and battered, with a knife sticking out from between his ribs, just below his chest. 

“Jones, holy shit!” he calls out, filling the space between them, worried that he’s too late — but Killian’s still breathing, though it’s incredibly labored. 

“I need an ambulance!” he calls into the radio. “Civilian down, with a stab wound behind the Rabbit Hole. Ambulance, now!” 

He gets a response almost immediately, but it’s nothing compared to the state of haste that Emma finds herself in as she jets across town. 

 

She beats the ambulance there, her heart pounding on her chest, and with each deep breath comes a struggle to keep the contents of her stomach where they belong. But that’s nothing compared to actually seeing him there, blood dripping from his mouth and the gashes on his face, not to mention the knife that must have narrowly avoided his heart. 

“Oh, god, Killian,” she mumbles, falling to her knees in front of him, thankful for the rise and fall of his chest beneath her fingertips. 

But that’s all she gets before the ambulance pulls up behind her and she has to move away from him to let them do their job. 

To let them bring him back to her. 

“Have you called David?” Graham asks, and she knows that he is trying to distract her, but she’s still thankful for it. 

“No, but I’ll do it now.”

“You’re going with him.” It’s not a question, but it’s not an order, either, and Emma’s not quite sure how to respond, so she just nods before turning away. 

David picks up on the first ring, doing nothing to hide the fact that he was most likely sitting by the phone waiting for it to ring. 

“Yeah?”

“Graham spotted him behind the Rabbit Hole but he disappeared again. Killian’s here, but he’s been beat up pretty bad, and, uh, stabbed.” How her voice stays as calm as it does is beyond her. 

“Christ almighty. By Neal?” 

“That’s the assumption.”

“Go with him to the hospital. Mary Margaret and I can stay with the kids, but text me with updates and call me in the morning.”

“Okay,” Emma agrees, but stops herself before she moves to hang up. 

After a moment, David speaks again. “Emma?” 

She hums in response, suddenly unable to control the quiver of her lip. 

“He’s going to be alright.”

“Thanks, David,” she breathes, hanging up her phone before turning back to the collection of people behind her, the medics gathered around Killian. She only has to argue with one paramedic before she’s strapped into her seat in the back of the ambulance, her hand wrapped around Killian’s. 

She thinks that sitting beside him in the ambulance, watching the paramedics try to save his life is bad enough — but being forced to wait in the waiting room while Killian is in surgery, not being able to feel him alive beside her, is much, much worse. 

But until Dr. Whale pushes through the door and tells Emma that Killian is out of surgery, still recovering and asleep but should be up before the morning, the only thing she has to hold on to are the rings that usually hang around his neck, given to her for safekeeping by one of the paramedics. 


	17. Chapter Sixteen

_The_ Jewel of the Realm _rocks peacefully on the waters of Misthaven, her sails blowing softly in the warm breeze of the sea. The sun beats down from the clear sky, and there are seagulls perched on the sails of the ship._

_All is quiet in the world._

_Well, that’s not technically true: all is quiet in Killian’s world, though he knows that somewhere on the ship, the crew is rejoicing, but he fails to hear it. All he can hear is a deafening nothingness, an eerie, ear-piercing silence as he holds his brother in his arms. He knows there should be sounds: the waves crashing against the sides of the ship, footsteps from the crew on the deck above them, and the cheers - they made it out of Neverland, back to the Enchanted Forest, something none of them — especially not Killian himself — thought was going to happen after the chaos of their journey._

_And maybe somewhere, in the very back of his mind, he does hear these things; but all he can focus on at the moment is Liam, unmoving in his arms, the only pillar of his life that he’s always known to be solid. All he has now is… nothing. No family, no possessions beyond the small trunk of clothing sitting at the edge of his bunk. He remembers the words he said to him just moments ago: “I would follow you to the ends of the earth, brother” - and it is true._ Was _true. He would have followed his brother to the very ends of the earth, through every kingdom and realm known to man and those unknown. He would have gone through hell for his brother — but sitting here, holding his lifeless body, is a hell worse than any he has ever imagined._

_Because now, he has no one to follow, a fact that becomes exceptionally clear as he watches Liam’s body hit the water, the burial at sea that he always wanted - though not at so ripe an age._

_When one of the crew hands the sextant to him — “This belongs to you now, Captain,” — he doesn’t know what to say. He never wanted to be captain, never wanted to be in charge of his own ship — all he ever wanted was to sail the seas with his brother._

_And then, running his thumb over the patch attached to the sextant bag with his brother’s name —_ his _name — he has an idea: he may no longer be able to sail the seas with his brother, but he can surely sail the seas_ for _his brother._

_Taking a moment to look out over the crew, he can feel his heart pounding in his chest, hears it even over the sound of the waves against the hull of the ship. It is time to rally his crew._

_“We are sworn to serve the king and the realm. They sent us to retrieve an unthinkable poison, one that killed our dear captain. Never again shall we take such orders, serving the king, fighting his wars. That is the way of dishonor! And all you who disagree flee now, or walk the bloody plank!” No one moves a muscle, other than to look around at the others, everyone staying true to their new captain. “For those who stay will be free men, and I will be your captain. We’ll sail under the crimson flag, and we’ll give our enemies no quarter. We’ll take what we please! And we’ll live by our own rules, for that is the best form of all!_

_“Our kingdom is corrupt and immoral. They took my brother from me,  and now I’m going to take everything they’ve got, starting with this ship! Bring the paint from below! It’s time we rename this vessel!” He points to a crewman, who immediately goes to follow his orders. “We no longer sail as_ The Jewel of the Realm _, we now sail as the_ Jolly Roger _!” Now he is truly enraged, and removes the jacket of his officer’s uniform, tossing it overboard and into the waters of the corrupt realm, following the body of his lost brother. “When they come for us, I want them to know exactly what we are — pirates! For at least among thieves, there is honor!”_

_His crew begins to cheer, then chant his name: “Captain Jones! Captain Jones!”_

_Adrenaline rushes through him, and he clenches his jaw. He may have lost a brother, but he has gained a crew, a crew that has decided to stay true to him, even after he turns against the corrupt King._

_But as the newly-renamed_ Jolly Roger _sails back towards the sea port owned by their corrupt king, a dark shadow of a man dives into the ocean behind them, not far from the burial at sea that just took place on the deck of the ship. The shadow, backed with the strongest forms of dark magic in the universe, pulls the still-sinking body of Liam Jones from the water as it flies back towards the horizon, disappearing in the sky just as the stars begin to twinkle._

_When it sets it's feet down on the ground, it's owner smiles devilishly, hands on his hips._

_“Good job, shadow!” he cheers, and the group of boys gathered behind him join in the cheer. “Now, all it should take is…” His words trail off as he pulls the canteen out from under his belt, popping off the cork and kneeling down to pour some into the man’s mouth, the other hand moving in slow circles over his chest._

_Expectantly, he leans back, his eyes glued to the man’s chest, which should start moving at any moment._

_Except, it doesn’t._

_“Tinkerbell!” he yells, jumping to his feet, and a woman  — the first woman to ever be on the island — pushes through the line of boys, her arms crossed over her chest. “You said this would work!”_

_She rolls her eyes at him, and he sneers at her. “I said it might work, Pan. Bringing people back from the dead isn’t the easiest thing.”_

_Suddenly, a cloud of smoke appears behind them, and each of the boys draws their weapons as a face appears out of the smoke._

_“Good thing that I know how to help you!”_

_“We don’t want help from you, Dark One!” Tinkerbell yells, but Pan’s eyes just go wide as he stays silent. “Why would you want to help us anyway?”_

_The Dark One begins pacing in front of them, wringing his hands behind his back. “There will come a time when I will come to you with a favor regarding this man in particular, and his dear younger brother, whose face will become one that you all know very well. And because I have helped you resuscitate him, you will owe me that favor. Without me, this man will never come back to life and you will never be able to do… well, whatever you’re bringing him back to life to do.”_

_“We would never accept help from you,” Tinkerbell yells, but Pan holds up his hand, staring down the man in front of him._

_“Yes, okay,” he says, and Tinkerbell’s eyes widen in disbelief as the Dark One smiles. “I accept your help, Dark One. What do I need to do to bring Captain Jones back from the dead?”_

_“Hand me your canteen,” he commands, pulling a vile of sparkling black liquid out of the satchel around his waist, which he pours into the container before handing it back to Pan. “Now do as the fairy told you to.”_

_Pan stares up at the Dark One for a moment before pouring the liquid carefully into the sailor’s mouth, his hand moving in slow circles over his chest._

_Nothing happens._

_Then the Dark One snaps his fingers, and Liam Jones comes back to life._

_— — / — —_

_Baelfire pushes through the line of trees in front of him, slowing only when his feet reach the sand of the beach. He finds the ship on the horizon, right where he knew it would be — right where it always is. He is the first of the party to make it to the beach, so he sits in the sand, his fingers digging holes into it at his side._

_They meet under the cover of darkness, Bae begging to universe, the gods of fate, whoever — if anyone — is watching over him to let him get away without Pan’s knowledge, or at least without Pan's intervention._

_Which is difficult on an island that Pan controls._

_So much has happened since what must has been months ago, when he decided he needed to leave Neverland before Pan tried to kill him._

_Again._

_Tried to kill him again._

_As always when he sees the_ Jolly Roger _swaying peacefully in the waters of Neverland, he wants to be angry, but is instead just sad. When he found himself on Killian’s ship all those years ago, he really thought the man had come to care for him. Even if he was the man that tore his family apart, that took his mother and killed her when she tried to leave, he thought maybe the pirate still had a heart. But he has been here for dozens of years, and the damned pirate had never even tried to help him. He knows the_ Jolly _can travel realms, and escaping would be that much easier if Killian wanted to help him._

_But he doesn’t. Tink must have shared their plan with him by now, knows that she spends time with the pirate. The man just doesn’t care, which shouldn’t surprise him as much as it does._

_Shouldn’t hurt him as much as it does._

_Tinkerbell and Wendy push through the treeline, and Bae snaps his head towards the sound, thankful that it is his friends and not any of his enemies._

_“Do we have enough?” he whispers, still trying to get used to the way his voice has dropped in the past few weeks. After being fourteen for so long, the magic that keeps time from passing in Neverland has stopped working for him, and he has grown a few inches, started to find some peach fuzz covering his face, and, of course, his voice._

_It turns out that when you stop calling Neverland home, when you long to leave the island and live somewhere else, Neverland stops being your home. For this, Bae is almost thankful, save the fact that it’s been terrifically difficult to hide from Pan._

_Tinkerbell reaches into the bag slung over her shoulder and pulls out a small jar filled with glittering powder, her fingers gripped tightly around the glass. “I collected as much as I could find without him getting suspicious.”_

_“But is it enough?” Wendy asks._

_“I…” she starts, then presses her lips into a tight line. “I honestly have no clue. No one has ever tried to use fairy dust to leave Neverland before.”_

_Bae nods, reaching out to slide the jar from Tink’s grasp._

_“Thank you, Tink,” he says softly, and instead of taking the jar from her, he pulls her in for a hug, his rapid growth more obvious now as he stands a few inches taller than she does. “You risked everything for this, for a whim. And one day, I will come back and take you away from this wicked place as a thank you.”_

_“Just get off the island for now, Baelfire,” Tink responds, a small smile pulling at her lips._

_“Go somewhere he can never find you,” Wendy whispers in his ear when he moves to hug her. “Stay safe.”_

_“Thank you, Wendy,” he whispers back, pulling away from her just enough to look into her eyes. “In another life, things would have been different between us.”_

_“Perhaps, but we will never get the chance to find out.”_

_“Please come with me,” he pleads, for what must be the hundredth time._

_“You know I cannot, Bae. Who knows what he could do to my family if I left here.”_

_Bae has so much more he wants to say, since the two standing in front of him are the only friends he has ever had  — but a rustle in the bushes behind them replaces all of these thoughts with terror instead, and he pulls the jar from Tink’s hand, quickly unscrewing the lid and pouring the contents of it over him._

_“Go, Bae!” Tink yells. “Close your eyes and think of where you want to go.”_

_“Be safe, Baelfire!” Wendy calls as his feet leave the ground just as Pan pushes out of the clearing, his shadow and the other that follows his commands already flying after the boy._

_“Did you really think I wouldn’t know what you’ve been up to?” Pan asks, his voice a low growl, and both Tink and Wendy take a step away from him. “You’ll pay for this, you know.”_

_High in the air above them, Bae screams as one of the shadows takes a hold of his ankle and the other his arm, but they do not stop moving. A smile spreads across Pan’s evil features, but it fades away when Bae disappears from the sky, replaced with a momentary sparkle before the sky grows dark again._

_“It worked,” Tinkerbell breathes, a smile taking over her face, and when she turns to Wendy, she finds that the girl has a smile of her own._

_“Son of a bitch!” Pan yells, his shadow and the shadow of the young Captain moving back towards him, and he turns towards the girls, pointing his finger in their faces. “This isn’t over. This is_ far _from over.”_

 

_When Bae’s feet hit the ground, his whole body crumbles. Every inch of him hurts, his face and his legs badly bleeding, his arm most likely broken, and his head pounding._

_Thankfully, he is not alone. “Baelfire?” a voice asks from behind him, the crippled man moving as quickly as he can towards the body that he somehow knows is his son even though he hasn’t seen him for decades, though he has aged about ten years since the fairy dust swept his feet off the Neverland beach._

_“Papa?” Bae whispers, barely strong enough to speak, and when Rumple finally reaches his body, he barely has the energy to smile at the one man he has wanted to see for far too long. “Please, help me.”_

_“I — I don’t know how,” he chokes out, trying to stop the sob that comes tearing through his chest._

_“You_ idiot _,” a voice in his head that is not his own retorts. “You know exactly how to save him, but you’re nothing but a coward.”_

_He shakes his head as tears begin to stream down his face._ _“I — I can’t!” he responds out loud, but Bae has lost his consciousness, so no one hears him anyway._

_“You must,” the voice responds. “You must, or you will lose your son.”_

_“I can’t lose you, Bae,” he sobs, flicking his hand through the air, and a dagger appears. “And if this is what I have to do to keep you at my side, then I will do it.” He holds the dagger over Bae’s chest, which is barely moving anymore. “Baelfire, I make you the Dark One, I transfer the Darkness from me to you.”_

_A blinding flash of light radiates from the dagger, and Rumple drops it on his son’s chest, knocked back by the force of the blast._

_Momentarily paralyzed, Rumple watches as Baelfire sits up, an evil smile spread across his face. “Thank you, papa,” he growls, taking the dagger in his hand and disappearing in a cloud of grey smoke._

— — / — —

_“Rumple!” Her voice travels through the house, but no one hears her. “Rumplestiltskin!”_

_Finally, the man in question opens the door to the library, and when Regina realizes that he is carrying a pile of laundry, her eyes go wide, a confused smile spreading across her features._

_“What a sight,” she comments, gesturing towards her. “The Dark One fulfilling his domestic duties.”_

_Rumple opens his mouth to speak, but Bae appears behind them before he can say anything, a piece of parchment in his hands and his boots resting on the edge of the table. “That's because he's not the Dark One anymore,” he quips, failing to raise his attention from the parchment in front of him._

_“Excuse me?”_

_“He's no longer the Dark One,” he says again, slowing down his words as if that were the issue, and then raises his eyes to meet hers. “I am.”_

_Regina crosses her arms over her chest. “And who are you, exactly?”_

_“Baelfire,” he replies, and Regina turns on her heels to face Rumple again._

_“Baelfire, as in your son? The one you became the Dark One to save?”_

_Once again, Rumple opens his mouth to speak, but Bae's words come first._

_“It turns out that the way he was to save me was by making me the Dark One after the shadow of Peter Pan and that naval captain he brought back from the dead almost tore me apart as I was trying to escape Neverland.”_

_Regina blinks at him a few times before shaking her head. “There's a lot to unpack there, and I don't really have time to go through it all. But if you're the Dark One now and not your father, I suppose that means I now need your help and not his.”_

_“Why should I help you? My father offered his services because he thought he would find me in this Land Without Magic your curse would take everyone to. Since I am obviously not there, we no longer have a need for your curse.”_

_Regina's eyes go wide, and she takes a few steps towards Bae, seated at the table, leaning forward against the chair beside him. There's not anything you want?” she purrs, smiling at him. “If you help me in the same way your father was going to, you can write whatever you want in the curse. Tell me, Baelfire, what do you want most in the world?”_

_There is not even a moment's hesitation before the words fall from his lips. “Vengeance. Revenge against Killian Jones, the man who killed my mother and tore my family apart.”_

_After widening with an idea, Regina's eyes sparkle as she turns to the shelf behind Bae, her slender fingers moving across the items she finds there until they finally reach the one she is looking for: a small handheld mirror that she runs her hand over before smiling down at it and handing it to Baelfire, whose eyes grow wide with a devious grin when he sees what she is showing him._

_“You mean Captain Killian Jones, betrothed to the Princess of Misthaven? Marrying the daughter of the very people whose lives my curse is written to destroy?”_

_Bae finally tears his eyes from the mirror, the image of a proper-looking Killian Jones — no doubt the same man he met years ago, since he looks exactly the same — with the arm that ends in a hook wrapped around the shoulders of a beautiful blonde woman and his hand holding a glittering chalice as they talk to the people gathered around them. He smiles up at Regina._

_“How, exactly, can I be of assistance?”_

\--/--

At first, he swears it must be a dream. _Another_ dream, like the ones that have filled his mind since he slipped into unconsciousness in that alley. Or perhaps it is instead the entrance to whatever afterlife the world has planned for him. The last thing he expects it to be is reality, because it is the last thing he deserves after everything he has done.

But when he begins to move, tries to reach his hand out and is instead met with searing flames of pain across his body, he decides that either he has instead descended into hell, or is somehow still alive after everything that happened with Neal in that alleyway.

He _almost_ hopes it is the first option.

Until she stirs, realizing what is happening in front of her before reaching out the hand that she must forget is wrapped around the chain in her hands to press it against his chest. Even hell would not be this cruel to him, using the perfect morning sun coming through the curtains to light up his wife’s peaceful face.

“Jesus, Killian, don’t try to move,” she whispers, and if the incessant beeping coming from the machines around him weren’t already making it obvious, he can swear that his heart is pounding hard enough for her to feel it with the hand still resting on his chest.

“I’ve worked that much out on my own,” he croaks out, his voice sounding nowhere near as smooth as he hoped it would, and the laugh that escapes his chest at this sends tremors of pain through his whole body.

“What do you remember?” she asks, her voice soft and soothing and everything he’s been too afraid to think of her as since he left her behind and went through the wardrobe.

He closes his eyes, focused on the beating of his heart and the warmth radiating from her hand resting right above it.

“Neal,” he tries, but it comes out as a whisper. Taking a deep breath, he swallows slowly, then tries again. “He’s — he’s more dangerous than you ever could have known, love. He wants to kill me, to kill my girl, and now that he has his powers back, he’ll be even harder to stop.”

He hears Emma suck in a breath beside him, and he opens his eyes to look at her. Her gaze has fallen to the bed, and when her hand starts to slowly fall from his chest to meet her other resting on the mattress beside him, he stops it with his hand, wrapping the chain around some of his fingers.

“His… powers.”

It is not until she speaks these words that he remembers how much she is unaware of, and he tightens his fingers around her hand, opening his mouth to speak but realizing he does not have the words.

“You mean, like, the disappearing thing?” she asks in the silence, and though her eyes are still avoiding his gaze, he watches as she pulls her bottom lip up between her teeth, slipping her hand out from under his so she can run both of them through her hair.

“Aye,” he whispers. “That’s just the beginning.”

“And he’s working with Regina.”

“He told me that, too.” Finally, she raises her gaze and finds his again. “He monologued a bit before he stabbed me,” he says, then attempts to laugh again before the pain becomes so strong all he can do is wince.

“Be careful, you have a few broken ribs, and a large laceration.”

“That must be why it hurts when I laugh.”

“You’re lucky you’re not dead, Killian,” she says, her voice more sincere than he was prepared for.

“I’m a survivor,” he comments, trying not to reveal just how much the fact that she cares gets to him, but it’s nothing compared to the overwhelming wave of pure adoration that rolls through him when she speaks again, so softly that he almost did not hear it over all of the machines running around him.

“I’m glad you’re not dead.”

“Thank you, Emma.”

A moment passes between them, Killian’s focus on the emotions crossing her face as her eyes search the room to look at anything besides him.

“Can I—” he starts, and he can barely meet her eyes before they’ve darted away from him again. When he reaches out to place one of his hands on top of hers, resting against the edge of the mattress, though, she keeps his gaze. “Why are you here, Emma?”

She opens her mouth to respond, but all that comes out is a long breath. When she tears her eyes from his this time, they turn down to where their hands are joined, his thumb moving slowly across the soft skin on the back of her hand. How does she tell him everything going through her mind, when it all seems so insane?

But everything that’s happened over the past few weeks is so insane anyway, so the least she can do is attempt the truth.

“Everything else in my life is falling to pieces, and even though I’ve only known you for a few weeks, you seem to be the one constant that holds everything together.”

He does not know how to respond, wants in this moment to tell her the truth more than ever before, so instead, he pulls her hand to his lips, and as he kisses the edge of her knuckles, she sees a flash of a memory in her mind — or a flash of something, because it certainly cannot be a memory, can it?

How can she have a memory of the man before her, years younger, wearing the oddest outfit she has ever seen — _is that leather?_ — a smile on his face with one hand on his sword and the other — _no, not_ another _, there’s something in place of it_ — on the railing of the _Jolly Roger_ , wearing the largest smile she has ever seen as he leans down to kiss her.

_What the actual fuck?_

But, as quick as it came, it’s gone again.

Killian must see something change on her face as the vision fades, as she pulls her hand back from his grip.

“Emma, love, is something the matter?” he asks, his voice caring and sincere and things that it certainly cannot be in this moment.

“I can’t — I have to go.”

She jumps to her feet, the chair sliding against the floor as it moves away from the bed, but Killian reaches out to stop her, his hand wrapping around her wrist.

“Please, love, don't—” he says, but she pulls free of his grasp, staring down at him for a moment before quickly leaning to press a soft kiss against his cheek and —

_Wrong move._

This _certainly_ can’t be a memory: Killian is there again, wearing the same leather jacket from before, but this time he’s in the middle of a bright room, surrounded by flowers and people and music and she is —

_A wedding ceremony._

“Emma?” he asks softly, pulling her back to reality, but she is even more terrified of whatever is happening to her, frozen with fear and curiosity and something much deeper that she’s too afraid to try to give a word to.

She leans forward against the bed, steadying herself against the mattress, and it’s all she can do to not fall to the floor. And then there is something else, Killian’s hand resting against her arm, his bright eyes still staring up at her, trying to decipher exactly what is happening, except her head is spinning and traveling in a million different directions at a time, because none of that can be real, it’s _absolutely_ impossible, she knows what’s real and what’s not, and she’s only known Killian for a few weeks, so none of it can be anything other than… visions.

In her heart, she knows this is a lie, and this scares her more than anything else.

“I can’t deal with this,” she says, and though every muscle in her body is screaming for her to leave, she still finds herself completely frozen in place. “I can’t do this to a man who has a family and a — a wife that he’s trying to find to get his family back together, trying to raise his daughter —”

“Emma,” he says again, and all she can do is look down at him as he stares at her with the most intense expression she has ever seen — but she feels like she has seen it before. “Trust me, love,” he whispers, then reaches up to press his hand against her cheek.

She doesn’t know what this is supposed to mean, but she finds herself unable to fight him, unable to do anything _besides_ trust him, as he wipes away the tear that is falling on her cheek before leading her face down towards his so he can press a soft kiss against her lips.

 _No, no, no, this is wrong_ , she tells herself. _He has a family, has someone he loves, I can’t—_

Suddenly, everything is flooded with a bright flash of light, her entire body growing warm for just a moment, and it disappears just as quickly. When it clears, Emma is still right there, inches away from his face, her eyes wide.

But something is different.

 _Everything_ is different, and the brightness in her eyes that was missing just moments before is restored.

“Killian,” she breathes, smiling as she finds his lips with hers again, her hands moving to cup his face. “Thank god, Killian.”

“I had no idea if that was going to work,” he comments, trying to laugh again, and somehow it seems to hurt less than it did before. “Bloody hell, did I need it to work, though.”

“You did it, Killian,” she says, kissing him one more time before sitting back in the chair, one hand still pressed against his cheek while he laces his fingers through the other. “You broke the curse.”

When David pushes through the doors a few moments later, they both turn in anticipation of the same excitement they share.

But it does not come.

“How do you feel, Mr. Jones?” he asks, showing no sign that anything has changed.

“I’m alive, at least,” Killian manages, trying to keep his confusion off his face. “Any updates on Neal?”

“We’re still searching for him,” is all David has to say, hands in the pockets of his jeans as he stops to stand behind Emma. “Though it’s increasingly difficult to catch a man who can disappear into a cloud of smoke.”

“You’ll keep me updated, though?” Emma asks, turning around to face him.

“Of course.”

A beat passes, none of them sure of what else to say.

“I’m going to go find your doctor, Jones,” David says finally. “And I’ll send the rest of the crew in.” Smiling at them, he turns on his heel and walks out of the room, only to be replaced by Henry and Hope.

As soon as David is out of earshot, Emma jumps up out of her seat to wrap her arms around Hope, pulling Henry in after a moment.

“My sweet girl,” she whispers, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

“Does this mean—” Henry starts, but Emma’s nod, and then Killian’s when he turns his attention to the bed, is enough of an answer for him.

“We broke the curse, lad.”

A smile breaks out across Henry’s face, then Hope’s, but it does not last very long. In just moments, it has disappeared from the younger boy’s, turning instead to a worried, and very confused, knit of his brows.

Emma realizes how much this look resembles the same look on his father — his _real_ father _—_ and her heart soars.

“But then why didn’t David act any differently towards us?”

“If the curse was broken, wouldn’t he know that he’s our grandpa?” Hope asks, her own look of worry spread across her face.

“It’s only been a few moments since it happened, darlings,” Killian explains, and Emma leads them all over to his bedside. “We’re still trying to work out the details of it all.”

“But you’re right,” Emma adds, when none of the worry drains from the looks of her children.

_Her children._

“If we really broke the curse, the whole curse, my father wouldn’t hide it from us.”

“But then what are we going to do?” Hope turns her bright blue eyes up towards her parents, full of more worry than a twelve year old should be able to understand.

Neither Emma or Killian know what to say to calm her nerves. “Come here, my cygnet," Killian says, opening his arms to allow the little girl to crawl up the bed and rest her head against his chest, trying to hide his wince when the pressure she puts against his ribs causes him pain.

“We need to find out how to break the curse,” Henry says, and for the first time in what actually feels like forever to a man who has been alive for centuries, when Emma pulls her bottom lip up between her teeth, Killian reaches out to set his hand on her leg, finally able to comfort her.

“We need to talk to Jefferson,” Killian replies, Hope nodding in agreement against his chest as the other two sets of eyes turn towards him, full of confusion.

“Jefferson?” Emma asks, and Henry adds, “Like Grace's dad Jefferson?”

“Aye, he's not cursed. He traveled here not long after it was cast to collect information on it and try to learn how to break it.”

“Then I guess I'll give him a call,” Emma replies, still a bit awestruck as she moves to stand, but the weight of Killian's hand on her leg keeps her where she is. “Who else knows?”

“Well, the four of us in this room, Jeff and Grace, and Regina and the Dark One. Neal. Baelfire. Whoever he is in this world."

“Wait.” For a moment, her body is stuck, completely frozen, overwhelmed by what Killian has just revealed to her. “Neal is the Dark One? I thought Rumple was the Dark One?”

“As did I, but when he was monologuing to me as he tried to kill me in that alleyway, he revealed otherwise. Turns out when he escaped Neverland, around the same time you and I met, he was almost killed by Pan's magic, by Pan's shadow, so to save his life, Rumple was forced to transfer the Darkness to him, making him the Dark One.”

Emma takes a few moments to think over this revelation, nodding slowly. “So when Rumple helped us find the kids when Neal took them…”

“Turns out he was actually trying to be helpful, aye.”

“Maybe the man has a heart anyway.”

“That seems a little drastic, don't you think, mom?” Hope asks, turning her head away from Killian's chest to look at Emma.

Emma smiles down at her, running her fingers through he blonde curls. “You've been waiting for quite a while to call me that, haven't you, Hope?”

The little girl nods, and Emma turns her eyes up to her husband, her memories slowly coming back to her. “So you went with Hope, huh?” she asks, Hope slightly confused, but Killian just smiles when he realizes what she means. “I think it's perfect. You named her for a prophecy about herself.”

Killian wants to pull her lips down to his, wants to give her every kiss he has missed for the last twelve years, but has no choice but to pull away from her when David comes back around the corner, his eyes widening a bit in surprise at the four of them, all crowded onto the small hospital bed.

“Dr. Whale wants to keep you for a few more days to make sure your healing goes as planned, so because we haven't yet caught Neal Gold, I'd like to continue to have police protection watching over you. I can call Graham to relieve you, if you want, Emma?”

“No!” she says perhaps a bit too quickly — and definitely too enthusiastically, given the look that covers David's face. “I'd, uh, I'd like to stay here with him,” she tries again, reddening just a touch.

“Yeah, okay,” David responds, running his fingers through his salt-and-pepper hair. “Of course, that's fine.” He lets out a deep breath, trying to keep the smile off of his face as he changes the subject. “Do you want us to go get breakfast from somewhere? I don't want to make either of you eat hospital food if you don't have to.”

“Thank you, Dave,” Killian responds. “I know it's early still, but I would, uh — I'd really like a cheeseburger, if that's okay?

David smiles, shaking his head. “Of course I can get you a cheeseburger, Mr. Jones. And for you, Emma? Your usual?”

Emma just nods before wrapping her arm around Henry's shoulder. “You guys go with David, okay? Killian and I will be here when you get back.”

“Okay, mom!” he replies, hopping down off the bed, closely followed by Hope.

“Thank you, David,” Emma mumbles, catching herself before accidentally calling him “dad” — which is a very odd feeling, having a family after believing for so long that all she was was alone.

As soon as David closes the door behind him and the two kids, Emma turns on the mattress, re-situating herself so she is laying next to him, her arm wrapped around his shoulders so he can rest his head against her chest.

For a few minutes, they are silent, simply happy to be back together in the way they were destined to be, Emma carding her fingers mindlessly through his hair.

Finally, Killian is the one to break the silence. “Gods, love, I missed you so damn much,” he whispers, pressing his lips against her collarbone, her neck, her shoulder. “Every day I had to live without you felt like an entire lifetime.”

Emma laughs, a light giggle that might be the greatest sound Killian has heard in twelve years. “That's saying a lot for a man who's lived a few hundred years.”

“I'm serious, Emma,” he replies, his whole face holding the same sincerity as his voice.

“I know.”

He has so much more he wants to tell her, to apologize to her for, but instead of trying to piece the words together, he finds his lips with hers, putting all of the words into the slide of his tongue against hers.

“I love you,” she breathes, pulling away just far enough to say the words against his smile.

“And I you."

They allow the silence to overtake them once more for a few more minutes. 

“We should move to a less confusing position for when David comes back with food,” Killian whispers, and Emma nods, her forehead knocking softly against his. 

“And call Jefferson, apparently.” 

“Aye, yes, love, that, too.” 

When David does arrive back, Emma has returned to the chair beside the bed, a notepad spread out in front of her as they try to work out everything they know so far about the curse — though when David comes through the doors, Emma flips to the page before it, where they have started to write all the information they could think of about Neal, which would make more sense to everyone who still has cursed memories. 

Lunch passes quickly in the hospital room, Killian practically inhaling his burger while Emma barely picks at her bear claw, and David is trying to find the politest way to excuse himself when Killian yawns just as one of the nurses enters the room. 

“I think we should let Mr. Jones get some rest so he can heal better, don't you think?” David asks, smiling at the nurse, who nods in agreement. 

“I would like to check on his wounds anyways, so I'm going to have to ask you all to leave the room.” 

Hope turns to hug her father before hopping down off the side of the bed, and Henry flashes him a sad smile, wishing he could do the same. 

“Keep me updated, Emma,” David commands gruffly as the nurse leads them out of the room, closing the door behind her. 

“You know it.” 

With another clap on the back from David, plus a hug from both Henry and Hope (the second leaving tears in her eyes), the three of them head down the hallway, leaving Emma behind to watch them until they turn the corner to the elevator. 

After a moment, her phone begins to vibrate in her pocket, and she pulls it out to reveal an incoming call from Jefferson. 

“Emma!” he cries as soon as she answers the phone. “Is everything alright?” 

“Killian's getting his bandages changed, so he's not available at this exact moment but I —” Just thinking of the fact that she can reveal this to someone, that she even knows what it means, pulls a smile across her lips. “I have my memories back. True Loves Kiss worked, but it only worked for me. We have no idea why, and we're trying to figure out where to go from here.” 

“That's… That's certainly interesting, Emma. I'm glad you have your memories back, of course, but this just makes the curse that much harder to break now.” 

“Any ideas?” 

She can almost see the way he furiously shakes his head at her question. “I'll look through my books and see if I can discover anything else.” 

“Thanks, Jeff. And be safe out there, we still don't know where Neal went.” 

“Thanks for the warning. I'll let you know when I find anything.” 

As she slides her phone back into her back pocket, the nurse opens the door behind her, and Emma turns towards the noise. 

“How is he?” 

“His wounds are much better than we thought they would be when he came in. His broken ribs are going to take a while to heal, and the scarring along his ribs may never disappear. But he's alive, and in a much better state than we anticipated.” The smile the nurse shares with her is genuine, and she tries to place this woman's face from the Enchanted Forest —  _ Dorothy _ . She wonders if they had ever met, if she had ever even seen her before. 

“Thank you, Miss Gale,” Emma replies, needing to stop staring at her before suspicions arose — and needing to get back to her healing husband. “I appreciate all the work you've done.” 

The nurse walks away after flashing another small smile at Emma, so she returns to the chair next to Killian's bed. “I talked to Jeff on the phone, he's seeing what he can find about the curse now that I have my memories back, or if anything of his has changed.” 

“That's good,” he says, his voice soft, and though he tries to hide his exhaustion, he fails miserably. 

“I should let you get some rest.” 

“Please, stay here,” he whispers, reaching out to cover her hand with his. 

“I'm not going anywhere, Killian,” she responds, leaning forward to press her lips against his cheek. “Never again. I promise.” 

But he is already asleep. 


	18. Chapter Seventeen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, hey! I'm back! With another chapter, that contains some emotional trauma and a few cute Swan-Jones family moments, because I'm not completely heartless. Enjoy! As always, thanks for reading -- we're almost to the end, folks!

\

Emma spends the time Killian sleeps beside her to continue to look over the notes that they have so far about the curse, but there is one piece of information that she keeps coming back to, one that started as a nagging whisper in the back of her mind as she turned back and forth between the sets of pages, but she does not realize that just the thought of it has overtaken her mind until she sees the dark spot on the page in front of he from where a tear has fallen from her nose. 

Neal is the Dark One. 

_ Neal  _ is the reason she has spent the past twelve years separated from her love, from her family. The past twelve years living a lie, believing that she was in love with him. 

_Forced_ to believe that she was in love with him. 

Forced to believe that she was in love with the man who tore her family apart. 

But now that she knows better, all she feels is hurt. Pain. Anger. 

Because now that she remembers everything, she remembers  _ everything _ .  She remembers the curse being cast, saying goodbye to Killian as he took their daughter through the wardrobe, and falling in her father’s arms when she tells him the secret she kept from her husband. Remembers the purple smoke billowing around them as her mother found them in Hope’s nursery and joined in their embrace. 

She remembers waking up in Storybrooke, beside the man she was led to believe she was in love with for twelve years. The man that she was supposed to believe was the father of the child she was carrying. The man that made her live a lie. 

A life that she now realizes was a lie. Every moment spent with Neal, every kiss, every night spent in his bed. 

The moments she thought she loved him the most. 

A sob tears through her chest, one she wishes she kept inside as soon as it bursts through her lips, because as soon as it's out, Killian stirs beside her.

"Are you okay, darling?" he asks before he even manages to open his eyes.

She opens her mouth to say yes, to tell him to go back to sleep, but another sob slips through the cracks instead. all she can do is shake her head, stretching the aching muscles of her back when she leans over the side of the bed to rest her for head on his chest.

His fingers begin to move softly through her hair, the weight of his hand warm on her back, and when he speaks, his voice is soft, caring — everything that's been missing from her life for the past twelve years, she hates to admit, but realizes it's true. "Emma, my love, my darling, I've got you," he promises, and she is thankful she knows for sure that he's right. "It's going to be okay."

He doesn't pry, doesn't try to get her to talk. Even after the years they've been forced to spend apart, he acts as if he has not spent a day away from her, as if he still has her every movement memorized. As she tries to calm herself, focused on the feel of him under her fingertips, the way he is gently caressing her hair, he continues to mumble encouragement to her, and it only takes a few minutes for Emma to feel calm again, ready to talk to him about her realization.

"He used me," she says finally, her voice much steadier than she figured it would be, though she assumes it has ever thing to do with Killian's calming presence and not her own strength. "Everything he did was a lie, all the time he spent with me, with Henry, it was all... Everything he did to me it was... he was using me. I was just a tool he used in his revenge game." 

She turns her head on his chest so she can look up at him, but  he stays silent, has nothing to add, and Emma feels his breath get stuck in his chest, right below where she has her ear pressed. "All because of me," he says, though there is barely any sound behind it. 

Suddenly, she feels as it all the air has suddenly left the hospital room. 

As unfair as it all is, though, he’s still right. Everything Neal has done to her since the curse was cast, the nightmare her life has become in the past twelve years, and especially in the past two, was because of his vendetta against Killian, a vendetta that goes back centuries. 

“All the shit that’s happened to you since your baby girl and I went through that wardrobe was because of Baelfire's need for revenge against me.”

“Neal is a monster, Killian. Please don’t —"

She lifts her head off his chest, but keeps her arms where they were, the feel of her hands against his chest keeping him from disappearing in his anger, his regret, his inability to know how to comfort his wife for the first time, and in a moment when she desperately needs him; and his hand on her back still somehow calms her, even as her anger turns towards her husband . 

Which is insane. 

"I can't even imagine what you had to go through, love, living with that man, being in love with him, and you had to do it all because of me." 

"Killian, come on," Emma begs, reaching up to press her fingers against his cheek. "You couldn't have known." 

 

“You're right,” he says, his voice heavy with the anger and the anguish he feels in this moment. “If I would have known, if I could have come sooner… I would do anything for you.” 

“I know,” she says, her voice no stronger than before, but she's hoping that the smile she tries her best to flash at him is strong enough to calm him.

“I love you,” she whispers as he pulls her knuckles to his lips. It’s a gesture he’s missed immensely, and he intends to make up all of the times he should have been doing it over the past twelve years. 

Though when she says “I love you” in return, threading the fingers of her free hand in the hair along the nape of his neck so she can pull her lips to meet hers, he decides that he needs to make up lost time in that way, as well. 

 

Things between them aren’t perfect. After twelve years apart, living their lives separated, it’s difficult for them to just go back to where they were before the curse was cast, especially since there has been no sign of Neal since his disappearance following Killian's attack.

Much of their time is spent as a family on the  _ Jolly _ , Emma telling David and Mary Margaret that she wants Henry and Hope to be able to enjoy the last few weeks of summer before it’s time for them to go back to school. 

What she doesn’t tell them is that the open sea is the only place that she can kiss her husband without the prying eyes of the small town, and she  _ really  _ likes kissing her husband. 

A week after his release from the hospital, they are standing together on the deck, with Henry and Hope out of the sun in the captain’s quarters below, watching something on her laptop. She is leaning against the helm, looking out over the water, with Killian’s arms wrapped around her waist, his lips trailing across the back of her neck, her shoulders, her back. 

“Gods, Emma, I bloody missed you.” 

She laughs, a gentle thing that warms his whole body, though when he nips on her earlobe, it turns into a low groan that warms a very specific part of his body, and it’s no help to himself when he tightens his grip around her waist and pulls her tighter against him. 

“Can I ask you something?” she asks, crossing her own arms over his so she can thread her fingers through those on his right hand, her other wrapping around his elbow. 

“Of course, darling,” he mumbles, gliding his lips across the back of her neck. 

“When we weren’t — when you were, you know, over the past twelve years, did you… were there ever… any other…” She finally trails off, and when Killian turns her in his arms so he can look at her, he finds her eyes set on the deck and her bottom lip pulled up between her teeth. 

“Emma,” he whispers, placing his index finger under her chin to pull her gaze to meet his. Her green eyes, brightly reflecting the midday sun, are filled with worry, slowly filling with tears, and he presses a gentle kiss to her forehead and each of her cheeks before looking down at her again. “Not a moment of the past twelve years has passed without me missing you. I have never, once, stopped thinking of you, stopped loving you, or stopped being loyal to you.” 

It’s not a lie, and Emma can tell this in his eyes. Even if he had not been raising their daughter on his own, he would never have been able to look at, think about, nonetheless touch another woman without the memory of her sitting heavily on his mind. 

“Of course,” she says, her voice soft, as if it would break if she tried to speak any louder — and he fears this is exactly the truth. She nods. “Of course, that was a stupid question, I never should have—”

“It wasn’t a stupid question, love,” he says, his voice as gentle as the press of his fingertips against her cheek. “You have every right to know. You’re my wife, my true love, and the only thing I’ve wanted since I walked through that bloody wardrobe was to have you back in my arms.” 

Her head drops as her gaze falls to the deck, her forehead pressed against his chin. He does not try to move her, allows her the silence he knows she needs in these moments, and when she speaks again, he can hear the trembling in her voice. 

“Even after what I’ve done because of the curse?” 

He doesn’t answer at first, pressing his own eyes shut as he struggles to hold himself together, anger and sadness coursing through his veins. 

“Because I haven’t been loyal you. I didn’t even have a memory of you to be loyal to in the first place, and I—” 

“Emma,” he says finally, and her words stop immediately. “I will tell you this as much as you need to hear it before you believe it, but I don’t care. What you did under the curse was no fault of your own, and should not be something you need to apologize for. You were tricked, forced to believe a lie, and if you think that makes me love you any less, then I will do whatever I need to prove to you otherwise.” 

“I want,” she says, then stops, slowly running her tongue over her bottom lip, staring up at him as she wraps her arms around his neck. “I want to stay with you tonight.” 

“I thought you were staying with Mary Margaret so they don’t get suspicious.” He’s not sure where the words come from, because he wants nothing more than for her to stay the night, but he does know that they have been trying their best to not make it look like whatever they’re doing is a  _ relationship _ , for fear that people would just believe that she’s using him as a rebound, as a way to distract herself from what Neal has done. 

“I don’t care, Killian. I don’t  _ care _ .”

“Believe me, love, I don’t care either, but we’re going to need to convince Mary Margaret to keep the children for the night, or else she’ll come to the worst conclusions—”

“The  _ right  _ conclusions.”

“Yes, of course, but she doesn’t have to know that, her or your father.” 

Emma laughs, like physically  _ giggles _ , and Killian feels it light up his whole soul. That might be a bit extreme, he realizes, that doesn't make it any less true.

Being back with Emma, having her in his arms again and able to treat her as his wife once more, is the greatest feeling in the world. Before all this, before the curse and their separation, he knew that loving her was the greatest thing that ever happened to him — but this, their re-connection after so long, has replaced that.

Even more so when the door to the captain's cabin creaks open and their children —  _ bloody hell, their children _ , he can hardly believe that they're all back together, gathered on the deck of his ship — run up, joining in their embrace. 

“When can we eat?” Hope asks, and Emma reaches down to run her fingers through her bright blonde hair. 

“Yeah, mom, I’m hungry,” Henry adds, and Killian smiles down at him. 

“Yeah, mom,” Killian says, turning to his wife, a smile on his face as he pulls her hips closer to his. “I’m hungry. Can we eat?” 

“Daddy, are you making fun of me?” Hope asks, and when Killian turns his smile down to his daughter, Emma can swear that she has never seen him happier in his life. 

“Of course not, cygnet, I’m just hungry.” 

“Well, as soon as your father gets us back to the coast, then we can go to Mary Margret and David’s for dinner.” 

Cheers commence on deck, not just from Henry and hope, but from Killian, as well, and when Emma smiles at all of them, Killian is sure that her smile is brighter than the sun. 

  
  
  


After dinner, Killian stands first to help clear off the table, but is stopped by David’s hand on his arm. 

“Actually, Jones, if you wouldn’t mind, I could use your help with something in the backyard.” 

Emma smiles as she watches them walk away, remembering just how close Killian and her father were in the last years before the curse. With the kids set in front of the TV watching a movie, it just leaves Mary Margaret and Emma in the kitchen, cleaning up the rest of dinner. They're both quiet for a while, and while Emma is just fine with it, she can tell that Mary Margaret has something she wants to say. 

She breaks when she catches Emma starting out the window at Killian, watching as he helps David move gardening equipment back into the shed and failing to pay attention to the already-clean plate in her hands. 

“Emma, what are you doing?” 

“I'm washing dishes,” she answers quickly. She knows it’s not what she means, but she was hoping to avoid questions about anything else, though Mary Margaret disagrees.

“No, no, with Killian. With Neal.” 

Emma hands her the plate, refusing to turn towards her and meet her eye. “Neal and I are done. I thought that would be obvious enough after everything that’s happened.” 

In the silence, though, Emma decides to turn towards her — towards her mother — but Mary Margaret looks as if she has no idea what Emma is talking about. “You're not going to give him another chance? He is the father of your child, doesn't he deserve at least that?” 

Emma almost breaks, wanting to tell her everything, to spill the truth, but she can't. “No, he doesn't still deserve that. He doesn't deserve anything from me.”

“So you're just going to give up on him, move on so quickly to this new man who you've known for just a few weeks.” 

She drops the dish sponge into the sink, turning fully towards her mother, though doing nothing to hide the anger on her face. “I wish you would stop talking like you know what's best for me, for my son. There is so much more to this than you know. If I want to leave Neal behind, then that's my decision.” 

Suddenly, David's voice comes from beside them, where he's been standing for a few moments after coming back in from the garage. “I never liked him much, anyway.” Emma smiles over at him, leaning so casually back against the door frame. 

“David!” Mary Margaret yells.

“Thanks, dad— … vid,” she tries to save it, but it's too late. She hopes that Mary Margaret’s outburst covered her own up, but she’s pretty sure it doesn’t work. Even if neither of them heard it — and by the look on David's face, he heard it — her quickly-changing face gives it away. “I'm, uh, gonna go check on the kids.” 

Once she is out of the room, Mary Margaret turns angrily back to David, throwing her dishrag down on the counter. “You could have had my back there.” 

“Listen, I've dealt a lot with Neal in the past few weeks, I think I —” 

“What does that mean?” 

David snaps his mouth shut, exceptionally confused. For a moment, he tries to convince himself that maybe she really doesn’t know about everything that’s happened, but then he remembers that she sat right beside him for some of it. “Mary Margaret, you were there in the diner the other day. You heard how Neal treated her, and then —” but she looks so confused, so terrified, that he can't bring himself to tell her anymore. “Let's just say that after everything he's done in the past few weeks, I don't blame her for not wanting to be with him anymore.” 

In this moment, Killian comes back inside, needing to wash the dirt from his hands, and both of them snap their mouths shut, turning to him. Before he even has a moment to get a word in, Mary Margaret starts the interrogation

“What are your intentions with Emma?” 

“Mary Margaret!” David yells, his eyes wide as he turns to his wife, but Killian is paying no attention to either of them. 

Instead, his eyes are fixed on the window behind them, through which he can see into the back yard, and he watches as Hope holds a ball of light in her hands — magic. His little girl has magic.  


	19. Chapter Eighteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really do have to thank you all for sticking with me here -- as you may have noticed, there's now a final chapter count. Three more chapters, and an epilogue. The end is near! Thank you all for reading, commenting, messaging, liking, and all that -- please never stop.

Emma reaches down and covers Hope’s hands with her own, quickly snuffing out the small ball of magic before turning to look around her, making sure no one saw what she just did. But when she finds the only pair of eyes she finds on them are Killian’s — are her husband’s, watching them through the window over the sink. 

The smile on his face gives it away. He saw what she just did, ensuring her that it was not all in her mind. He saw what she saw, saw the little ball of light held in her daughter’s small hands. 

Whatever is happening in the kitchen must stop immediately, because Killian is out of the line of the window within moments, replaced by David’s confused face finding nothing exciting in the backyard. But moments later, Killian pushes through the back door of the garage and into the yard, rushing to fill the space between them before scooping Hope up in his arms. 

“Oh, my little cygnet!” he cries, smiling at Emma as he wraps his arms around their little girl. 

“You saw then?” Emma asks, even though she already knows the answer to the question, and he just nods excitedly. “What does this mean?”

Killian pauses for a moment, honestly not sure what it means, but their conversation is halted when David and Mary Margaret join them in the back yard. 

“Is everything alright out here?” David asks, genuine concern in his voice, and Emma smiles brightly at him as a response. 

She opens her mouth to speak, trying to come up with an excuse, but Killian beats her to the punch. 

“I just remembered that we had promised Grace and Jefferson that we could meet them for ice cream tonight, and if we don’t leave soon we might miss them completely.”

“Jefferson?” Mary Margaret asks, her hands on her hips. “That guy that owns the bar down town?” 

“His daughter and Hope have become fast friends over the summer, and they’ll be in the same class come the start of the school year.” 

David’s face lights up at this revelation. “You’re — you’ve decided to stay?” 

Killian smiles back, his hand resting on Hope’s shoulder. When he looks down at her, she is smiling, too. “Indefinitely,” he says, but stops any response from David or Mary Margaret with, “But for now, we have to go.”

 

“Jefferson, what the bloody hell does this all mean?” 

“Daddy, watch your language!” Hope yells from beside him, hitting his broad forearm with her small hand, which elicits a small chuckle from the table. 

“Don’t you understand?” Jefferson asks, his eyes wide as he leans across the kitchen table towards them. “This is it! I didn’t — I couldn’t see it before, it wasn’t in any of the books, but _now_ it all makes sense! That’s what this all means, and now we know how — _what_ — we need to do.” 

“Jeff, please,” Emma begs, reaching across the table and placing her hand on his arm. “Slow down. Explain. You’re just rambling again.” 

He stares at her for a moment, as if he doesn’t understand her, before his face softens and he leans back in his chair. “The curse,” he whispers. “This is it, this _has_ to be it. How we break it.” 

When he doesn’t continue, Killian prompts him with a wave of his hand. “The book — it says that one of the things Regina was sure to have in this world when she wrote the curse is her crypt, where she keeps her magic supplies, her collection of hearts, and her mother’s coffin.”

“Woah, woah, woah, her _collection of hearts_?” Emma asks, at the same time Killian exclaims “Her mother’s coffin?” 

And then, from Hope: “ _That’s so cool!”_

Henry giggles beside Emma, and when she turns to him, eyes wide, Killian turns in the other direction, down to Hope. “You and I will be having a conversation later about the meaning of the word _cool_.” 

“How does her magic connect to the crypt?” Emma asks.

“According to the storybook, there are two ways to get into the crypt. Blood magic and light magic.”

“Why would she do that? Why would she give us that advantage?” 

"I'm not sure if that was something she wrote in, or something that the Curse corrected itself. But she also never expected magic to follow her to Storybrooke, especially not through the little princess." When Jefferson says this, he smiles down at Hope, who beams up at him. No one had ever called her the princess before, Killian realizes. But that's exactly what she is. 

"And what do we do when we get into this… vault?" Emma asks, her voice still dripping with uncertainty. 

"That's where the dagger is," Jeff says cooly, as if it's supposed to make sense to Emma. 

But Killian gets it, leaning further on the table. "Wait…" he says slowly, his eyes growing wide. "You mean, like, _the_ dagger? The Dark One's dagger?" 

Jefferson nods, somehow the only thing he does not do quickly, and Emma is starting to lose her patience. 

"Can someone please explain to me what this all means?"

Jeff opens this month to speak, but Henry beats him to it. "Can I?" he asks, his voice small, as if he is afraid that he will get yelled at. 

"Of course, lad," Killian says, and Henry's face lights up. 

"The dagger controls the Dark One. Whoever controls the dagger can tell him what to do, and he has to listen to them." 

"And you think we can get this dagger by breaking into her vault? And she won't realize it?" 

"That's the point, though, mom," Hope says, and Emma feels her heart soar just as it does every time her little girl calls her mom. "She'll realize it, and by the time she gets there, there will be nothing she can do about it. We'll get the dagger, we'll get Uncle Liam's heart, and then we can defeat her. Both of us, together.” 

Emma smiles at the sureness in her daughter’s voice, but it does not last long when she realizes a hitch in Hope’s plan. “There’s an issue with this, though,” she says, her smile quickly turning into a frown. “I don’t have my powers. I don’t have magic.” 

The room grows silent for a moment, before Killian wraps his arm around the back of her chair, pulling her closer with the end of his brace. She turns to him, worry spread across her face, but she is surprised to see only genuine confidence on his features. 

“But you _do_.” 

“Come on,” she says. “I haven’t had magic for twelve years, since Regina cast this curse and sent us all to Storybrooke.” 

“That doesn’t mean you don’t have it,” Killian says softly, pressing a kiss to her temple. 

“Then why hasn’t it come back? After all we’ve gone through here, all the shit Neal and Regina have put us through, why hasn’t it come back to help me?” 

“Magic doesn’t always work like that,” Jefferson says, flipping through a few pages of the book in front of him. “Sometimes it simmers beneath the surface, just waiting for something to help it burst through.” 

“Like when you guys kissed in the hospital,” Henry helpfully comments. 

Jefferson nods, his eyes never leaving the pages. “Exactly like that, actually.” 

“What can we do to fix it?” Killian asks. 

“I mean, True Love’s Kiss didn’t work for you, that would have been too easy, anyway,” he mumbles, the words coming quickly. “And there’s the possibility of Hope being the key to it all, but you said that you’ve already come in contact with her magic, so that rules that out.” 

“Have you tried to conjure your magic while Hope is using hers? Maybe they’re tethered together, and once one of you is using them, the other one can tap into it, too.” 

It’s a brilliant idea, really. And it might actually work — but Emma barely heard any of it. Because she’s too focused on the movement of his hand. His hand, which has hooked its pinky into one of the rings on the chain that has fallen out from under his shirt. 

“The rings,” she says, almost under her breath, though she feels as if she’s discovered the answer to all of their questions.

Killian just looks confused. “Pardon?”

“Your ring, Killian,” she says, pointing to his hand, which is still pulling her wedding ring back and forth across the band. “Or, should I say, my ring.” 

It takes him another moment, but then his eyes grow comically wide, his gaze turning down to the ring between his fingers. Not his mother’s plain gold band, but Emma’s small silver one, with the large sapphire in the middle, between two smaller emeralds. The one that he designed and had made specifically for her. 

The one that — 

It’s as if they remember it at the same time, turning to each other, eyes wide, meeting glances before they both look down at the ring. Killian pulls the chain over his head, disconnecting the ends of the chain so he can hand Emma back her ring. 

Sliding it back into its rightful place on her left ring finger, it’s like the pieces of a puzzle falling into place, the warmth all over her body that feels familiar and strange all at the same time after being missing for twelve years. As she feels it spread through her body, she closes her eyes, allowing it to spread through her, into the tips of her fingers and her toes, brightening the edges of her vision — but it’s not quite right. It’s like pieces falling into place, but the pieces aren’t all there yet. 

“Is that—” Henry asks, at the same time Hope says, “What just happened?” 

Jefferson smiles. “Brilliant,” he whispers, staring at the two of them before he turns back down to the pages. 

Emma turns back to Killian, who is carefully watching her every movement. “Did it work?” 

She tries to smile, but even though it doesn’t cover her face, she hasn’t lost hope entirely — she has another plan. 

 

It’s raining by the time they make it across town and onto the _Jolly._ Killian was hoping that the rest of their group could wait on the main deck while he and Emma went into the captain’s quarters to do what needs to be done, but with the large, hot summer raindrops falling around them, he can’t bring himself to ask them to stay behind. 

Which doesn’t make it any easier when he watches Emma close her eyes, focus written into each small detail of her face as she runs her hands against the back of one of the storage drawers next to the bunk, waiting to hear the _pop_ of the lock of the false bottom. 

But after a few long moments, nothing happens, and he watches as her shoulders slump. 

“Hope, honey,” she says, pulling one of her hands out to wave their daughter over. “I need your help.” 

The girl rushes across the room from where Jefferson was keeping them all at the bottom of the steps, excited to be of help. Standing between Emma’s outstretched arms, Hope does just as her mother is doing, placing her hands on the bottom of the empty drawer, her eyes squeezed shut. 

“Just like that,” Emma whispers, barely loud enough for Killian to hear. “Focus on the warmth in your fingertips, you feel that, right?” Hope nods, even though Emma’s eyes are now closed again. “Focus on that warmth, and on something happy, on having our family back together, yeah?” 

Hope nods again, squeezing her eyes shut harder, and Emma’s face does the same. 

The clock on the bookshelf ticks a few times, suddenly audible to Killian over the pounding of the rain on the deck above them. Once, twice, thrice. 

And then he hears the bottom of the drawer come loose, Hope and Emma cheering together as Emma pulls out what she finds there, which pulls a gasp out of Hope first, then Henry and Grace when she turns enough for them to see. 

His heart. His bright, pounding, _beating_ heart, right where he and Emma put it a few days before the curse was cast, before Blue shrunk his ship. 

Before their lives got absolutely flipped upside-down. 

“Would you two, uh, like some privacy?” Jefferson asks, a hint of a smile in his voice, and Emma’s forehead falls against Killian’s shoulder. She doesn’t even try to suppress the laugh that rises through her body. 

“I, uh, hate to ask,” Killian answers, his voice dark, deep, in a way that makes Emma’s magic hum. “But I would really appreciate that.”

A moment passes. 

“Grace, Hope and I want to show you and your dad the rest of the ship!” Henry says excitedly, taking Grace’s hand in his own — a gesture Emma definitely doesn’t miss, even as they turn away and head back up the steps. Jefferson is the last one to turn around, winking at the two of them before leaving them behind in the captain’s cabin. 

For a moment, the only sounds are the ones that come from the ship: the creaking of the wood, the water lapping against the side, the slowing raindrops on the deck. Emma feels the pounding of his heart in her hand, her other pressed against where it belongs. 

“We’re going to fix this, alright?” she asks, but his eyes are set on the beams of the ceiling above them. “Killian?” she asks softly when he still does not respond. 

“And then what?” 

“Excuse me?” 

Finally, he drops his eyes to hers. “What are we going to do once we have this figured out? Once we break the curse, once and for all? Are we going to stay here, in this stupid little town, where most of your memories are lies? Or somewhere, out in this world, where we have to hide who we really are?” 

“Killian, what are you saying?” 

She watches the muscles in his jaw tick, his eyes squeezed shut, as he takes a shaky breath, his hand on her shoulder. 

“I want to go home,” he says softly, almost a whisper, and he rests his forehead against hers. “I miss Misthaven, and the life we had there. The happiness we found, it’s like… I’d never had that before. And I want to have it again.” 

“Is Misthaven even still there? Did it disappear when the curse was cast, or has it just been… sitting there? Empty?” 

“I don’t know, Emma. I don’t know, and I don’t care. I just know that those years that we spent together there were the happiest of the centuries that I’ve been alive, and after all of this, after everything we’ve been through since we learned about this curse, that’s what I want more than anything in the world — to be back there, living the life we had to leave behind, raising our children in the castle and on the water and throughout the Enchanted Forest.” 

Emma takes a deep breath. “Okay.” 

Killian pulls his head back, staring down at her. His love, his wife, the mother of his children, all these years later, and she’s still standing here, surprising him. “Pardon?” 

He watches as she nods. “Yeah, okay. I haven’t — I haven’t thought about it until now, but I want that, too. There are some things I’ll miss about this land, of course, you know, pizza and smartphones and cars, but if that’s where you want to be, it’s what I want, too.” 

He leans down to capture her lips with his, a soft, gentle kiss. He has missed this woman more than anything, more than it should be possible to miss someone, but he also loves her more than he ever thought possible — even without his heart in his chest. 

“Can I have my heart back so I can kiss you properly?” 

Emma laughs, then holds his heart up against his chest, above where it belongs. “Just be gentle with me,” he whispers, his lips almost touching the shell of her ear, just as she slams the beating organ back into his chest, very much _not_ gently. He takes a few wobbling steps back, his hands steadying him against the edge of the bed. Once he finally gets his footing back, he stares up at her, eyes wide with amazement. 

“Sorry?” she says with a shrug, but she is unable to keep the smile from taking over her face.

He surges back towards her, a growl escaping from deep in his throat as he wraps his arms around her, pulling her tight against him as he slams his lips into hers. This kiss is everything the last one was not — heated, hot, mere moments until Killian is pulling her back towards the wall next to the bed and sliding his tongue into her mouth. 

He doesn’t want to stop, and if he couldn’t hear the footsteps of his children and Jefferson moving above them, he probably wouldn’t have. 

“Come on, darling,” he says, trying to keep his voice steady even though he doesn’t fully pull his lips from hers. “We have a curse to break.” 

When she pulls away, she finally feels it for the first time, the warmth that has finally reached the edges of her body, of her soul, of her vision, the piece of her that was hidden with Killian’s missing heart — the final piece of herself coming back together. She reaches down and takes his hand, staring up into his ocean-blue eyes for a moment before she nods. But, turning away from him, something on the desk catches her eye, something that she thinks might be helpful for their next task, and she reaches out to pick it up, the cool metal familiar between her fingers. 

“I think you might need this,” she says, smiling at her husband as she holds his hook up between them. 

Killian just smiles, a silent laugh passing through his lips, and he holds his arm out towards her. “If you’ll do the honor, my love?” he asks, and sparks fly from her fingertips as she twists the hook into its rightful place. 

Now they’re ready.


End file.
